Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Nietzsche contra Wagner/The Case of Wagner - Immature idiots


“-all music must leap out of the wall and shake the listener to his very intestines. Only then you consider music ‘effective.’ But on whom are such effects achieved? On those whom a noble artist should never impress: on the mass, on the immature, on the blasé, on the sick, on the idiots, on Wagnerians!” (NcW 667-2).


I thought of this video immediately and it remains on my mind while reading Nietzsche’s admonition of Wagner and his cruel intentions of waging war on our nerves and sensibilities. There is something so helpless in this baby - simply reacting to the emotion of this song – without any power over it whatsoever. This baby represents the masses, the Wagnerians, the “immature” “idiots” as Nietzsche calls them, who are assaulted by Wagner’s music and left exhausted. 

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