Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsomnipresence of a dirty, insatiable greed and a prying curiosity.Whether mind is now present at all - we shall leave that question to thejudges of the future who will one day put modern man through theirsieve. But that this age is vulgar can be seen already, for it holds inhonour that which former noble ages despised; and if it has appropriatedto itself all that is valuable in the art and wisdom of the pastand promenades around in this most opulent of all raiment, it showsan uncanny awareness of its vulgarity in that it employs this cloak notto keep itself warm, but only to disguise itself. The need to dissembleand to conceal itself seems more pressing than the need not to becold. Thus our contemporary scholars and philosophers do notemploy the wisdom of the Indians and the Greeks so as to grow wiseand calm within themselves: the sole purpose of their work is tocreate for the present day an illusory reputation for wisdom. Studentsof animal behaviour exert themselves to represent the bestial outbreaksof violence and cunning and revengefulness in the mutualrelations between contemporary states and men as unalterable lawsof nature. Historians are engaged with inxious assiduity in provingthe proposition that every age possesses rights of its own and its ownconditions of existence - this by way of preparing the basis of thedefence to be presented at the court proceedings which will bevisited upon our age. Theories of the state, of the nation, of theeconomy, trade, justice - they all now have the character of a preparatoryapologia; it seems, indeed, as though the only task of all activespirit not used up in propelling the great economy- and powermachineis the defence and exculpation of the present.Before what accuser? one asks in perplexity.Before its own bad conscience.And the task of modern art, too, suddenly becomes clear:stupefaction or delirium! To put to sleep or to intoxicate! To silencethe conscience, by one means or the other! To help the modern soulto forget its feeling of guilt, not to help it to return to innocence! Andthis at least for moments at a time! To defend man against himself bycompelling him to silence and to an inability to hear! - the few whohave felt what this most shameful of tasks, this dreadful degradationof art, really means will find their souls filling to the brim with regretand pity: but also with a new mighty longing. He who desired toliberate art, to restore its desecrated sanctity, would first have to haveliberated himself from the modern soul; only when innocent himselfcould he discover the innocence of art, and he thus has twotremendous acts of purification and consecration to accomplish. If220