Daniel Ahern. The Smile of Tragedy.

Pennsylvania State University

Press: Pennsylvania. 2012.
Nietzsche says:
[C]ommonsense and practicality, though revealing a profound
intelligence, may also be signs of cowardice; and second, those
seeking guarantees that an investment of time will deliver the
profitable, tangible benefits of knowledge should avoid
philosophy. (p. 1).
I take the term Dionysian pessimism to designate what, in The
Gay Science, Nietzsche called tragic insight (GS 370). He refers to
it while demarcating his standpoint from the revenge inherent to the
romantic pessimism of Wagners music, and the whole
philosophical tradition of aesthetics. (p. 4)
What does Nietzsche mean by Dionysian pessimism?
[T]here features of the young Nietzsches initial approach to
philosophy will remain constant throughout his intellectual life: the
physiological distinction between the healthy and decadent
epochs of Greek culture; the assertion that Greek philosophy, from
Socrates onwards, is symptomatic of cultural decline (T X 3); and,
though Socrates remains the last of the original and exemplary
sages we call the pre-Socratics, his rank among them is the
lowest. (p. 11) (Note 26: Summary of Nietzsche as a Cultural
Physiologist).
note 26: When he [Nietzsche] compares Socrates to his
predecessors, Nietzsche places Socrtaes at the lowest rank as one
who promoted and affirmed life. However, as a culturally destructive
force, Socrates is peerless. Nietzsches perception of Socrates is a
compelling and deeply interesting study because of the demands it
places on those who grew up with Socrates as a philosophical hero
as well as for those with a genuine love for intellectual history.
((EXTENT LIST OF POSSIBLE SECONDARY LITERATURE)).
Dale Wilkerson Nietzsche and the Greeks.
David McNeills On the Relationship
Philip Pothens Nietzsche and the Fate of Art.
Alexander Nehamas Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and
Socrates.
Paul Harrisons The Disenchantment of Reason: The Problem of
Socrates in Modernity.
John Salliss Crossings: Nietzsche and the Space of Tragedy.
Werner Dannhausser Nietzsches View of Socrates.

In search of the tragic wisdom: A Nietzschean adventure.

Nuestra nica referencia hacia la vida debe estar basada en una
especie de actitud hacia el pasado. Sabemos de la vida porque
sabemos que la vida existi antes. Tenemos una teora evolutiva
que indica que hemos estado en este mundo desde hace algn
tiempo. Sin embargo, la actitud posmoderna, para Nietzsche
decadente, nos indica que tenemos que voltear siempre hacia el
futuro; pero el futuro no tiene vida. En su ltima posibilidad el futuro
significa muerte, est desprovisto de esperanza: el futuro es, como
posibilidad ltima, nihilismo. As, como malas conciencias de
nuestra poca, pertenecemos a un mundo que mira al futuro como
otorgndole preponderancia sobre el presente y el pasado. La
actitud trgica solo sirve para darnos cuenta que debemos buscar la
vida en las Viejas formas, reviviendolas. La tradicin no es mala
porque instituya. En cambio, la tradicin es apertura posibilitante.
Si la tradicin abre nuevas puertas es para que resignifiquemos este
presente; siendo siempre crticos en la medida de lo possible.
What we have here, then, points to a pessimism that is
symptomatic of weakness, which, cultivated through suffering, is a
type of disinclination. Pessimism as a mode of weakness is an
unwillingness, or reluctance, to have faith in life because of pain and
suffering, not to mention the indifference of nature and the
contingencies that forever undermine our hunger for knowledge and
justice (p.18)
The sopho, old sages, are more identified to those who have good
taste, not to those who always want to know at all costs.
The sovereignty of sopha over techne lay, for Nietzsche, in how
the formers taste for greatness conferred upon it the status of
determining the ultimate value of things. In this sense, wisdom is
recognized within the mores of the ruling elites position of deciding
not only what is worthy but also in terms of restraining and
controlling the blind unrestrained greed of [our] drive for
knowledge. (p.27)
We discussed Dionysian pessimism as an attitude Nietzsche
identified with the warrior elite of the tragic age. There we saw that
pessimism of strength (BT SC 1) which, as an acceptance of our
own inevitable destruction, allows one to decide what is worthy of
ones death. (p.35)
Science provides the advantage of being able to recognize
something as fixed. (p. 27)
The significance of Dionysus goes back to Nietzsches philosophical
debut in aesthetics with the publication of The Birth of Tragedy,
where Dionysus is introduced as the rhythmic artistic power of a
horrible witches brew of sensuality (BT 2) that dissolves

personal identity into mad dance of social and personal

destruction. (p. 39)
The articulation of suffering is one appropriate to Dionysus, and for
Nietzsche it is synonymous with the health he identified with the
real pain of Homeric man (BT 3) during the tragic age. Here is the
ache of a prodigious love for the fact that one is. Dionysus
represents those who suffer from over-fullness of life (GS 370) and
hence a health so intense that it must display the generosity of
which we have been speaking [related to de Dionysian
pessimism] (p. 41)
The Dionysian pessimistic person is willing to sacrifice life itself!
Socrates indeed sacrifice its life in order to prove that he was sure of
his teachings, nevertheless his life was sacrificed for arguments, for
a dialectical dimension, never for an existential or vital one. When
Socrates sacrifices himself in the pyre of Athens, he does so insofar
as his arguments are being sacrificed; not the man, but his words.
the Dionysian as such joy, strength, overflowing health, overgreat
fullness that one actually suffers from possessing it. Ultimately,
then, it is possible to suffer precisely from overfullness (BT SC
1).Dionysus is the name for a health and vitality so lurid that, like
splitting skin of overripe grapes, the human being, aching with
joyous gratitude at the very fact of existence, say yes to life beyond
all death (p. 43)
Dionysian pessimism is an instinctive and potentially fatal shiver of
ecstasy at the very fact that one is including ones destiny to
suffer and be destroyed. This amor fati (GS 276) is the tragic
wisdom of self-overcoming, which out of joy hurls itself into chance
the existing soul which plunges into becoming (Z III 19). There is
no sense of duty, or of a being resigned to ones destruction.
Dionysian pessimism is, rather, more a risking oneself out of lavish,
intoxicated joy in living, and ones destruction is an impulsive
gesture of playful generosity (p.43-44).
The Aztec warrior? The warror-like society of the Aztec?
Nietzsches description of this poetry as fulfilling the Hellenic
need (BT SC 1) to sacrifice its highest types (T X 5). We will
no pay closer attention to what he meant in saying this sacrifice,
understood as a revelation of Dionysus, is as means to grasping
the tragic poet (T X 5). (p. 45)
For Nietzsche: Ethics and Aesthetics are not separated. They were
part of the same unity for the Ancient Greek. They were unified by
the over-rich and dangerous health (GS 372) (p. 45).