Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsopposite: firstly, that he has never possessed th gift of artisticcreativity, and then that the pleasure he calls 'innocent' is anythingbut innocent, inasmuch as it gradually undermined a fu ndamentallyvigorous and deep-seated scholarly and critical nature - that is to say,the genius Strauss actually did possess - and in the end destroyed it. In anaccess of unrestrained candour, Strauss himself concedes that.he hasalways 'had his own Merck within him, who cried to him: you mustno longer produce such trash, others can do that!' This was the voiceof the genuine Straussian genius: and it even tells him how much orhow little his latest, innocently lightly clad testament of the modernphilistine is worth. Others can do that too! And many could do it better!And those who could do it best, more gifted and richer spirits thanStrauss, would, when they had done it, never have produced anythingother than - trash.I believe I have made it clear how I regard Strauss the writer: as anactor who plays at being a genius and classic. Lichtenberg once said:'The simple style is to be recommended first of all because no honestman subjects what he has to say to artifiCial elaboration', but that certainlydoes not mean that the simple manner is a proof of authorialintegrity. I could wish that Strauss the writer were more honest, fo rthen he would write better and be less celebrated. Or - if heabsolutely must be an actor - I could wish he were a good actor andknew better how to imitate the style of naive genius and the classic.For it remains to be said that Strauss is in fact a bad actor and utterlyworthless as a stylist.11The reproach that one is not a good writer is softened, to be sure, bythe fact that in Germany it is very difficult to become even amediocre and tolerable writer, and quite astonishingly improbablethat one will become a good one. A natural basis is lacking, an artisticevaluation, treatment and cultivation of oral speech. As the expressions'salon conversation', 'sermon', 'parliamentary oratory',indicate, public speech has in Germany not yet attained to a nationalstyle or even to the desire for a style; language has not yet emergedfrom the stage of naive experimentation; so that there is no unifiednorm by which the writer may be guided and he thus has a certainright to handle language on his own responsibility: and this mustresult in that limitless dilapidation of the German language whichconstitutes the 'language of the present' and which has been des-48