Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely MeditationsNow this is his attitude towards culture too. He behaves as though lifewere to him only otium but sine dignitate:' and even in his dreams hedoes not throw off his yoke, like a slave who even when freed stilldreams of servitude and beatings. Our scholars are hardly to be distinguished- and then not to their advantage - from farmers whowant to increase the tiny property they have inherited and areassiduously employed all day and far into the night in tilling thefield, leading the plough and encouraging the oxen. Now, Pascalbelieves quite generally that men pursue their business and theirsciences so eagerly only so as to elude the most important questionswhich would press upon them in a state of solitude or if they weretruly idle, that is to say precisely those questions as to Whither,Whence and Why. Amazingly, the most obvious question fails tooccur to our scholars: what is their work, their hurry, their painfulfrenzy supposed to be for? To earn bread or acquire positions ofhonour, perhaps? Not at all. Yet you exert yourselves like those inneed of food, indeed you tear it from the table of science as greedilyand as utterly un selectively as though yO}:l were on the point of starvation.But if you, as men of science, treat science in the way a workertreats the tasks that are to furnish his means oflife, what will becomeof a culture condemned to await the hour of its birth and redemptionin the midst of such excitement and breathless confusion? Noone has time for it - and yet what is science for at all if it has no timefor culture? At least reply to this question: what is the Whence,Whither, To what end of science ifit is not to lead to culture? To ledto barbarism, perhaps? That our learned class has already gonefrighteningly far in this direction is evident when we think that suchsuperficial books as Strauss's are sufficient to meet the demands oftheir present cultural level. For it is precisely in such books that wefind that repellent need for entertainment and that casual, only-halflisteningaccommodation with philosophy and culture and with theserious things oflife in general. One is reminded of the social worldof the learned classes, where too, when the shop talk is exhausted,there is evidence only of weariness, of a desire for diversion at anyprice, of a tattered memory and incoherent personal experience.When we hear Strauss speak of the problems of life - whether it bethe problem of marriage or of war or of capital punishment - we areappalled at his lack of real experience, of any native insight into thenature of man: all his judgments are so uniformly bookish, indeed at"'otium sine dignitate: idleness without dignity36