Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

David Strauss, the confessor and the writerhis style, which now and then reminds us of Aeschylus. Only hisspirit had too little of hardness in it; he lacked the weapon ofhumour; he could not admit that one can be a philistine without being a barbarian.'It is this last confession, and not the sugary condolences ofthe after-dinner speaker, that concerns us. Yes, one admits to being aphilistine - but a barbarian! Not at any price. Poor H6lderlin was,alas, incapable of drawing such fine distinctions. If, to be sure, oneunderstands by the word barbarian the opposite of civilization, oreven equates it with such things as piracy and cannibalism, then thedistinction is justified; but what the aesthetician is plainly trying tosay is that one can be a philistine and at the same time a man of culture- this is the joke that poor H6lderlin had not the humour to seeand the lack of which destroyed him.On this occasion a second admission escaped the speaker: 'It isnot always strength of will, but weakn ss, which enables us to transcendthat longing fo r the beautiful experienced so profoundly 'bytragic souls' - that, or something like it, was the confession, deposedin the name of the assembled 'we', that is to say the 'transcenders',the 'transcenders through weakness'! Let us be content with theseadmissions! For we now know two things, and from the mouth of aninitiate: first, that this 'we' has really got free of the desire for beauty,has indeed actually transcended it; and, secondly, that this wasaccomplished through weakness! In less indiscrete moments thisweakness had been called by a fairer name: it was the celebrated'healthiness' of the cultural philistines. After this latest information,however, it might be advisable henceforth to refer to them, not as the'healthy', but as the weaklings or, more strongly, as the weak. If onlythese weak were not in possession of the power! What can it matter tothem what they are called! For they are the masters, and he is nogenuine master who cannot endure a mocking nickname. Indeed,provided one possesses the power, one is even free to mock at oneself.It does not really matter then whether one exposes oneself toattack: for what does the purple, the mantle of triumph, not protect!The strength of the cultural philistine comes to light when he admitshis weakness: and the more often and more cynically he admits it,the more clearly he betrays his feelings of self-importance andsuperiority. This is the age of cynical philistine confessions. As FriedrichVischer made aural confession, so David Strauss has confessed witha book: that aural confession was cynical, and so is this book ofconfessions.13