I had a philosophy professor who walked into the class once and said: "Let's confess: we are not and will never be as good as a Nietzsche or a Kierkegaard or a Hegel. Our levels are somewhat below. So now let us proceed and discuss their works!"
At this point I had a series of reactions which I rehearsed in my head:
"Speak for yourself, missy!"
"If we really are not as good as these guys, then why bother discussing their work? Why pretend that we fathom even a word of what they write? Why not concede that they write for themselves and then sing our own songs, even if no one listens to them? For no one listens to them either... hehe..."
"How happily you believe in degrees of goodness - 'we are not as good as [them]' - as if you are initiating us to the secrets of the wretched, as if the latter deserve their happiness too... Isn't it true that even the presumed readers of these people's works are also on the same level as these people, that there is only an absolute understanding of them, corresponding to that sublime level where no words can reach, and that the half-way understandings of the average have no reality whatsoever?"
"Can you show some modesty please?"
Then I was briefly woken up from my imaginative musings by these judgmental words from the one person who was actually speaking in the class: "Nietzsche... hmmph... if that sort of surrender to nature and appeal to child-like playfulness appeals to you....!" Well.
I went back to my dreamworld to raise a few more questions...
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2 comments:
This post is excellent. Reading another person's work is like entering into a conversation. If you bow to a writer before opening their book, how can you possibly open new doors of thought?
Yeah! But further: One shouldn't bow to a writer even after one opens their book
:)
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