What if we cloned Nietzsche?
One thing I think about a lot: what if we cloned Nietzsche? You know, what if we cloned him back in the 19th century, and didn't tell his clone that he was Nietzsche's clone?
Nietzsche was a pretty good writer. And he was a bitch. He was at times witty, insightful, cutting - the "stylus" - occasionally devastating. He had a way with the one-liner - the "apothegm" as he called it. Sometimes he could pack more meaning into a brief, offhand, dismissive remark than most writers can convey in a hundred pages. But...
You get the sense, reading these jabs, of both restraint and indulgence.
Take the "Untimely Meditations." To my taste, they're timely - all too timely. When I read Nietzsche's essay on David Strauss, my only thought was, "Him?" Why bother? Undoubtedly Nietzsche was trying to ingratiate himself to Bruno Bauer, his only reader, his "entire public" as Nietzsche called him. It's like philosophy youtubers who feel compelled to reply to whatever Jordan Peterson is saying. In twenty years, no one will remember who Jordan Peterson was. Apparently David Strauss was a big deal back then. Nietzsche couldn't resist writing about him, no matter how undignified or tasteless it might be. He similarly couldn't hold back his resentful snipes at other influences such as Schleiermacher and Mainländer.
Which brings me back to the question - what would Nietzsche have said about Nietzsche? What sneering bon mot would a clone, with all of Nietzsche's rhetorical powers, have leveled at Nietzsche himself? Surely he wouldn't have been able to resist saying something. I'm always searching for that one magic phrase that I could use to devastate Nietzsche - the single, knock-out blow.
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