Submitted by GalacticAnarch (not verified) on Wed, 06/16/2021 - 12:05
If you make a comparison from Voltaire and Tolstoy, we will see the significance of Nietzsche's criticism.
Voltaire as a member of the Enlightenment, Nietzsche both criticized him and liked him: on the one hand, the quest for otherworldly truth and certainty is nothing but a disease; on the other hand, Nietzsche liked Voltaire's passion.
" Voltaire's enemies, like all those Romantics, from Victor Hugo to the Goncourt brothers, the last of the Romantic divines, showed a devotion to Rousseau, a whiting under the mask that makes me suspect that in the bones of Romanticism existed the resentment of pariahs... Voltaire was a great and witty "scoundrel" (original French: canaille); but I agree with Father Galliani:
‘un monstre gai vaut mieux
qu'un sentimental ennuyeux. ’
-- Nietzsche in Nice, November 24, 1887; to Peter Gast in Venice[MT]"
And Tolstoy brought Christianity back to the Enlightenment, imprinting the process of the light going out. I think it is purely a matter of quality of mind. Upon comparison, we find that the true light is enough to illuminate the musty cellar even if only for a moment.
This is not only due to religion, but points out why the light of enlightenment necessarily go into decay. Why the revolution is going to its own opposite.
If you make a comparison from Voltaire and Tolstoy, we will see the significance of Nietzsche's criticism.
Voltaire as a member of the Enlightenment, Nietzsche both criticized him and liked him: on the one hand, the quest for otherworldly truth and certainty is nothing but a disease; on the other hand, Nietzsche liked Voltaire's passion.
" Voltaire's enemies, like all those Romantics, from Victor Hugo to the Goncourt brothers, the last of the Romantic divines, showed a devotion to Rousseau, a whiting under the mask that makes me suspect that in the bones of Romanticism existed the resentment of pariahs... Voltaire was a great and witty "scoundrel" (original French: canaille); but I agree with Father Galliani:
‘un monstre gai vaut mieux
qu'un sentimental ennuyeux. ’
-- Nietzsche in Nice, November 24, 1887; to Peter Gast in Venice[MT]"
And Tolstoy brought Christianity back to the Enlightenment, imprinting the process of the light going out. I think it is purely a matter of quality of mind. Upon comparison, we find that the true light is enough to illuminate the musty cellar even if only for a moment.
This is not only due to religion, but points out why the light of enlightenment necessarily go into decay. Why the revolution is going to its own opposite.