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From: malgosia askanas <ma@xxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 21:32:01 -0500 (EST)
John wrote about Nietzsche:
> Later on, he claims that "it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that
> existence and the world are justified" (_Birth_, Section 5, p. 52).
> [...]
> ... if we put the stress on "justified," does he mean that we only get to
> the point of accepting the world, of considering it justified, when it is
> tarted up as an aesthetic phenomenon?
Heh heh, what a wonderful topic. So I would question this idea of "tarting
up". What do you see this "tarting up" as consisting of? To me, it seems
that to regard existence and the world as _justified_ is already, ipso facto,
to regard them aesthetically -- because the "justification" flows out of
an act of sensemaking, of regarding things as interconnected. To me,
Nietzsche's statement is a kind of tautology -- it says more about his
understanding of the word "aesthetic" than about anything else. I would
argue that in this understanding, the operation of "tarting up", or
aesthetization, would have to be viewed as a sign of corruption, of a deep
sickening of the aesthetic sense.
-m