Foucault in a Nutshell

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 9/30/2013

Genealogy and Power Relations


Genealogy is not the search for origins, and is not the construction of a linear development. Instead it seeks to show the plural and sometimes contradictory past that reveals traces of the influence that power has had on truth through out history.

Genealogy deconstructs truth, arguing that truth is, more often than not, discovered by chance, backed by the operation of power or the consideration of interest. All periods of history have possessed certain underlying conditions of truth - conditions of discourse - that constituted what was acceptable. Foucault develops the notion of episteme - the historical a priori that grounds knowledge and its discourses and thus represents the condition of their possibility within a particular epoch- and argues that these conditions have changed over time, from one period's episteme to another. 

For example in the "History of Madness" Foucault identifies four epochs. In Middle Ages, insanity was blessedness and insane treated with respect and honor—models Christians could aspire to. At end of 16th century, insane became thought of as illness, disease. Insane turned from subjects to objects. During enlightenment—the age of reason—no sympathy showed to unreason or madness. In the vaunted “age of reason,” insane locked away with the poor and criminals. At end of 18th and beginning of 19th, shift in attitude toward insane again. Insane became regarded as mentally ill and were separated from the poor and criminals but not because of advancement in theoretically knowledge about mental illness. Rather shift in attitude derived from transformations in society—industrialization demanded larger labor force, which depended on the poor, (thus the poor taken out of hospitals) and the bourgeoisie fear of revolutionary, subversive behavior of criminals, which was a political concern, sent them to jails. Medicine at this time was a political discipline, full of prejudices, brutality, incomprehension, and lack of scientific knowledge. Then came Freud and his psychotherapy, which reflects an interpretive approach to studying man rather than a systematic or scientific one.

A "statement" is an existence function for discursive meaning. The rules which make an expression discursively meaningful. In contrast to structuralists, Foucault demonstrates that the semantic and syntactic structures do not suffice to determine the discursive meaning of an expression. A grammatically correct phrase may lack discursive meaning or, inversely, a grammatically incorrect sentence may be discursively meaningful - even meaningless letters (e.g. "QWERTY") may have discursive meaning. Thus, the meaning of expressions depends on the conditions in which they emerge and exist within a field of discourse; the discursive meaning of an expression is reliant on the succession of statements that precede and follow it. However, "statements" are also 'events', because, like other rules, they appear (or disappear) at some time. The statement is governed by a “system of its functioning,” which Foucault calls the “archive.” Archaeology is now interpreted as the excavation of the archive.

Besides focusing on the meaning of a discourse under analysis, the distinguishing characteristic of this approach is its stress on power relationships as expressed through language, and the relationship between language and power. This method tries to analyze how the social world, expressed through language, is affected by various sources of power, as the researcher tries to understand how our society is being shaped (constructed) by language, which in turn reflects various power relationships. He discusses how power demands obedience through domination, submission and subjugation, and also how power masks its true intentions by disguising itself as beneficial. As an example, he highlights the manner in which the feudal absolute monarchies of historical Europe, themselves a form of power, disguised their intentions by claiming that they were necessary to maintain law, order and peace. As a leftover concept from the days of feudalism, Foucault argues that westerners still view power as emanating from law, but he rejects this, proclaiming that they must "construct an analytics of power that no longer takes law as a model and a code".

What Foucault means by "Power", isn't power as the domination or subjugation exerted on society by the government or the state, but instead remarks that power should be understood "as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate". In this way, he argues, "Power is everywhere... because it comes from everywhere", emanating from all social relationships and being imposed throughout society bottom-up rather than top-down.

Foucault’s point is that we imagine power as being a thing that can be possessed by individuals, as organized pyramidal with one person at the apex, operating via negative sanctions. Foucault argues that power is in fact essentially relational. Power consists primarily not of something a person has, but rather is a matter of what people do, subsisting in our interactions with one another in the first instance. As such, power is completely Present to social networks. Power is "the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate". In this way, he argues, "Power is everywhere... because it comes from everywhere", emanating from all social relationships and being imposed throughout society bottom-up rather than top-down. Power has its own strategic logic, emerging from the actions of people within a network of power relations.

Biopower


Biopower is literally having power over bodies, over a population as a whole. It relates to the practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjects through "numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations". Biopower is utilized by an emphasis on the protection of life rather than the threat of death, its ultimate aim to produce surplus population. Which simply means more human resources, larger government, bigger revenues for the state and a better 'scientific' approach to ordering of the state.

Foucault gave numerous examples of biopolitical control when he first mentioned the concept in 1976. These examples include "ratio of births to deaths, the rate of reproduction, the fertility of a population, and so on."He contrasted this method of social control with political power in the Middle Ages. Whereas in the Middle Ages pandemics made death a permanent and perpetual part of life, this has shifted around the end of the 18th century. The development of vaccines and medicines dealing with public hygiene allowed death to be held (and/or withheld) from certain populations.

Foucault claims that the previous Greco-Roman, Medieval rule of the emperors,the Divine right of kings and Absolute monarchy model of power and social control over the body was an individualizing mode, all of this was drastically and dramatically altered with the advent of Political power in 18th century Europe. The voting franchise, Liberal democracy and Political parties.

Nietzsche in a Nutshell

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 9/29/2013

Summary of Nietzsche's Philosophy


At first, Nietzsche attacked the Western world that had followed Socrates and his Apollonian rationalism and had denied the darker, Dionysian, irrational side of man, the tragic side. He claimed that morality, God and judgment in the after-world are an invention of the weak (Slave Morality) (the Christians and the Jews but for him the Jews were more superior because their god reflected their National will and pride into power) to be distractions from the pains of this life and to weaken the strong's will to power in this life (Master Morality). This is unnatural as a sheep convincing the wolf to act like a sheep, priests ruled through the invention of sins. He attacks the idea of god saying that science killed him. Soul, free will, immortality, reason, order and love, all these are "idols", little gods that are dying now that the Big God has died. He then attacks science's god (Truth) saying there is no objective truth, there is only wills, so truth is subjective. He extends his attacks to every Ideology that promotes the idea that "all men are equal" like Liberalism and Socialism because they reteach the Slave Morality in a new way. what he feared most was the pollution and crippling of the superior minority by intellectual disease from below. Hence comes the Over-man, the Superman is the new god who exercises his will to power to create his own good and evil, his own morality (Master morality) denying a universal morality for all human beings, this idea acts as the opposite of "The Last Man", what the western civilization has set for itself. The lives of the last men are comfortable, they have no great passion or commitment, unable to dream, they merely earn their living. The last men claim to have discovered happiness, but blink every time they say so. Nietzsche values lightness and kindness in a powerful person because such a person is also capable of great solemnity and cruelty. There is no virtue in being kind simply because one hasn't the power to be cruel. But sooner or later all gods die, even the Superman, all history necessarily moved in a cycle, endlessly repeating all past events due to finite amount of matter and infinite amount of time thus every possible combination of elementary particles, every possible world, occur an infinite number of times, given infinite time. The Eternal Return is a must, all will return again to dust, and evolve worm, ape, man and Superman again and again. The Eternal Return is the triumph of "life" over logic, the only meaning is life then is the will to power. Power becomes its own end, not a means. The spirit of Anti-Christ or Dionysus has never received a complete formulation except with Nietzsche, he is Hell's favorite philosopher.

Overview of the Books


The Birth of Tragedy (1872)


Human, All Too Human (1878)

In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man’s torments.

Daybreak (1881)

It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly! 

The Gay Science (1882)

Become who you are. 
Do you believe then that the sciences would ever have arisen and become great if there had not beforehand been magicians, alchemists, astrologers and wizards, who thirsted and hungered after abscondite and forbidden powers?
“What, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!’ If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “do you want this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?.
Preparatory human beings. — I welcome all signs that a more virile, warlike age is about to begin, which will restore honor to courage above all! For this age shall prepare the way for one yet higher, and it shall gather the strength that this higher age will require some day — the age that will carry heroism into the search for knowledge and that will wage wars for the sake of ideas and their consequences.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885)

Zarathustra was written in only a few days, in a frenzy, perhaps of literally demon-inspired "automatic writing." No book ever written contains more Jungian archetypes, like a fireworks display of images from the unconscious. Nietzsche chose Zarathustra to speak his words because he "was the first to consider the fight of good and evil. Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it". This book for Nietzsche in his own words, "a lifework, my Zarathustra holds a place apart. With it, I gave my fellow-men the greatest gift that has ever been bestowed upon them., This book, the voice of which speaks out across the ages".
I am not to be a herdsman, I am not to be a grave-digger. Not any more will I discourse unto the people; for the last time have I spoken unto the dead.
But I live in mine own light, I drink again into myself the flames that break forth from me.
The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who can't fly.
And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall.
I tell you: one must still have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.
Of all that is written, I love only what a man has written with his own blood.
The most silent words are harbingers of the storm ; thoughts that come on dove's feet lead the world.
When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!"
They devour each other and cannot even digest themselves.

With thee have I wandered about in the remotest, coldest worlds, like a phantom that voluntarily haunteth winter roofs and snows.
With thee have I pushed into all the forbidden, all the worst and the furthest: and if there be anything of virtue in me, it is that I have had no fear of any prohibition.
With thee have I broken up whatever my heart revered; all boundary-stones and statues have I o'erthrown; the most dangerous wishes did I pursue,—verily, beyond every crime did I once go.
With thee did I unlearn the belief in words and worths and in great names. When the devil casteth his skin, doth not his name also fall away? It is also skin. The devil himself is perhaps—skin.
'Nothing is true, all is permitted': so said I to myself. Into the coldest water did I plunge with head and heart. Ah, how oft did I stand there naked on that account, like a red crab!

Thou thinkest thyself wise, thou proud Zarathustra! Read then the riddle, thou hard nut-cracker,—the riddle that I am! Say then: who am I!"
—When however Zarathustra had heard these words,—what think ye then took place in his soul? PITY OVERCAME HIM; and he sank down all at once, like an oak that hath long withstood many tree-fellers,—heavily, suddenly, to the terror even of those who meant to fell it. But immediately he got up again from the ground, and his countenance became stern.
"I know thee well," said he, with a brazen voice, "THOU ART THE MURDERER OF GOD! Let me go.
You look up when you wish to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted.
"This—is now MY way,—where is yours?" Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way." For THE way—it doth not exist!
When power becomes gracious and descends into the visible — such descent I call beauty. And there is nobody from whom I want beauty as much as from you who are powerful: let your kindness be your final self-conquest. Of all evil I deem you capable: therefore I want the good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves and only when ye have all denied me will I come back unto you.

Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby becomes a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.
If you still experience the stars as something "over you," you still don't have the eyes of a knower
A man's stomach is the reason he does not easily take himself for a God 
He enters a labyrinth, he multiplies by a thousand the dangers already inherent in the very act of living, not the least of which is the fact that no one with eyes will see how and where he gets lost and lonely and is torn limb from limb by some cave-Minotaur of conscience. 

On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)


Twilight of the Idols (1888)

Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
We have already gone beyond whatever we have words for. 

The Antichrist (1888)


The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends. 
I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous — a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite. 
Have you understood me? Dionysus versus Christ 
Why I am so Wise - Why I am so Clever - Why I Write such Excellent Books - Why I am a Fatality

The Will To Power (1888)


An anthology of material from Nietzsche's notebooks of the 1880s, edited by his friend Peter Gast, supervised by his sister Elisabeth Nietzsche, and misrepresented by her as his unpublished magnum opus. All but 16 of its 1067 fragments can be traced to source texts in the historical-critical edition of Nietzsche's writings, Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, though 204 of the 1067 sections involve patching together paragraphs not originally juxtaposed by Nietzsche, or dividing continuous passages into multiple "aphorisms" and re-arranging their order. Regarding the Anti-Christ, She hints that the text may have been garbled, after the author’s collapse, by some more sinister heretic.

Quotes About Him

His "noble" man—who is himself in day-dreams—is a being wholly devoid of sympathy, ruthless, cunning, cruel, concerned only with his own power. King Lear, on the verge of madness, says: "I will do such things—What they are yet I know not—but they shall be The terror of the earth." This is Nietzsche's philosophy in a nutshell ~ Russell, ibid. p. 767

Arguments against the Eternal Return

Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann has described an argument originally put forward by Georg Simmel, which rebuts the claim that a finite number of states must repeat within an infinite amount of time: Even if there were exceedingly few things in a finite space in an infinite time, they would not have to repeat in the same configurations. Suppose there were three wheels of equal size, rotating on the same axis, one point marked on the circumference of each wheel, and these three points lined up in one straight line. If the second wheel rotated twice as fast as the first, and if the speed of the third wheel was 1/p of the speed of the first, the initial line-up would never recur.

The Kaballah

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 9/28/2013

A mystical practice born from Judaism which used to be rooted in magic until the 16th century when it became just symbolic.

Genesis


Kabbalists believe Ein Sof created the world in order to understand itself better. Because it was infinite, Ein Sof was also formless and without purpose—it existed as pure energy. Ein Sof therefore resolved to create something with both form and purpose—human beings. The power of God’s energy was so vast that it prevented anything else from existing in the universe. To make room for the human race and everything else in the universe, Ein Sof’s first action had to be tsimtsum, which means “withdrawal.” In order to make room for creation, Ein Sof had to first create a void inside itself, a space in which to make yesh (something) from ayin (nothing). God created the world with thirty-two secret paths of wisdom. These paths of wisdom are composed of the ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Kabbalists believe that God’s creation of the universe was an act of divine self-sacrifice: God gave up its own life to create enough space for every thing and being that would occupy the universe. In withdrawing into itself, God left behind empty vessels to receive its energy in the form of light—Kabbalah comes from the Hebrew word that means “receiving.” But God’s boundless energy shattered the vessels. The breaking of the vessel destroyed the ordered universe that Ein Sof had begun to create. Tiny pieces of the vessel, like shards of glass, scattered and brought chaos to the universe. The masculine and feminine aspects of Ein Sof divided. Even Adam Kadmon split into parts.When the shards of the vessel began to fall, they brought with them sparks of Ein Sof’s light, called netzutzot. Together, the shards and the sparks fell into what would become material reality, or the human world. In place of a harmonious world made from the perfectly balanced ten sefirot, human beings entered a broken world filled with scattered sparks of divine light, which came to be called klippot, meaning “husks.”

Tree of Life


In the Sefer ha-Bahir the sefirot are described as “emanations” or attributes of God representing a particular part of God. The Tree of Life, a visual representation of the ten sefirot. The Tree is intended to symbolize the body of “Adam Kadmon,” also known as “primordial Adam.” Adam Kadmon is not the Adam of “Adam and Eve” that we read about in Genesis, but a kind of mystical template for human beings that God made before creating everything else. Though he never existed in the human world. Listed in order of their appearance and with a literal translation of their Hebrew meaning in parentheses, they are Keter (crown,the most hidden of all hidden things), Binah (understanding), Chochmah (wisdom), Gevurah (strength), Chesed (love), Tiferet (beauty), Hod (splendor), Netzach (endurance), Yesod (foundation), and Shekhinah (kingdom, God's creation). Each sefirah represents many things, including one of God’s qualities, a stage in the creation of the world, a biblical character, and a part of God’s body. Kabbalists portray the ten sefirot on a Tree of Life that serves as a visual map. The location of each sefirah on the Tree of Life represents a variety of qualities, including the sefirah’s gender and position on God’s body.


The first sefirah that emerged from God lies at the top of the Tree. Then, beginning with Keter, each sefirah arose out of and slightly modified thesefirah (or sefirot) that preceded it. Binah came from Keter. Gevurah came from Keter and Binah, altering both of them. The sefirot on the left side of the Tree (Binah, Gevurah, and Hod) are associated with feminine traits, whereas those on the right side (Chochmah, Chesed, and Netzach) are thought to be more masculine. Those in the center column (Keter, Tiferet, Yesod, and Shekhinah) are neutral. All of the feminine aspects are thought to be the daughters of Binah, who is known as the mother of the ten sefirot.

Kabbalists believe in reincarnation, the rebirth of a soul into a new human body, and transmigration, the movement from one form of life to another.

The Zohar


Moses de Leon (1250–1305) -  A Spanish writer of books on mysticism, Moses De Leon began handing out pamphlets in 1280 that he claimed had been written by Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai in the  second-century. These small books were the beginning of what would later become Sefer ha-Zohar, or the Zohar, the central text of Kabbalah. The Zohar is written in a very unconventional style, which some associate with the technique of “automatic writing.” Automatic writing requires the writer to enter a mystical trance and then immediately transcribe whatever thoughts first come to mind, no matter how scattered or unrelated. Automatic writing could supposedly unveil ideas buried deep in one’s consciousness, and perhaps bring a writer closer to understanding God. Others contend that the Zohar’s bizarre style results not from the automatic writing of one person, but from the contributions of various authors over hundreds of years. The Zohar describes the journey of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai and ten companions through Galilee, the northern region of Palestine and, formerly, the kingdom of Israel. Along their journey, the travelers discuss their interpretations of the Torah, and specifically the Torah’s main characters. The characters become a part of the narrative of the Zohar, their lives weaving in and out of those of Yohai and his group. The companions come and go fluidly within their own group—they often turn from one character into another.

The Anti-Christ

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 9/28/2013

Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously.
Nietzsche starts by defining the concepts of good, bad, and happiness in relation to the will to power.
What is good? -- All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? -- All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? -- The feeling that power increases -- that a resistance is overcome. 
Nietzsche's attacks pity and faith advocating skepticism and the will to power :
Faith moves no mountains but puts mountains where there are none: a quick walk through a madhouse enlightens one sufficiently about this.
Pity persuades men to nothingness! Of course, one does not say 'nothingness.' One says 'the Beyond' or 'God' or ' true life' or 'Nirvana,' 'salvation,' 'redemption,' 'blessedness'. Pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction;
Men of convictions are prisoners. They do not see far enough, they do not see what is below them. A mind that aspires to great things, and that wills the means thereto, is necessarily sceptical. Freedom from any sort of conviction belongs to strength, and to an independent point of view. The believer is not free to answer the question, “true” or “not true,” according to the dictates of his own conscience.
The weak and ill–constituted shall perish: first principle of our philanthropy. 
They rule, not because they want to, but because they are; they are not at liberty to play second.
He then shows how Christianity as an absence of will leads to Nihilism. He talks about Pascal who on 23 November 1654, between 10:30 and 12:30 at night, had an intense religious vision and immediately recorded the experience in a brief note to himself which began: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars..."
It has depraved the reason even of the intellectually strongest natures by teaching men to feel supreme values of intellectually as sinful, as misleading, as temptations. The most deplorable example: the depraving of Pascal, who believed his reason had been depraved by original sin while it had only been depraved by his Christianity!
Kant supported theological ideals by his discussions of the concepts of "true world" and "morality as the essence of the world." Kant's skeptical procedure was to show that these concepts could not be refuted, even though they could not be proved. Nietzsche was especially critical of Kant's Categorical imperative because its origin from concepts and logic was decadent because it was not a product of life, growth, self–preservation, and pleasure. Kant's practical reason was an attempt to give scientific legitimacy to his lack of intellectual conscience.
A backstairs leading to the old ideal stood open; the concept of the "true world," the concept of morality as the essence of the world (--the two most vicious errors that ever existed!), were once more, thanks to a subtle and wily skepticism, if not actually demonstrable, then at least no longer refutable... Reason, the prerogative of reason, does not go so far. . . Out of reality there had been made "appearance"; an absolutely false world, that of being, had been turned into reality.
The Christian God reflects Christianity's decadence. If Christians were naturally strong and confident, they would have a God who is destructive as well as good. 
Religion, within these limits, is a form of gratitude. A man is grateful for his own existence: to that end he needs a god.—Such a god must be able to work both benefits and injuries; he must be able to play either friend or foe—he is wondered at for the good he does as well as for the evil he does. But the castration, against all nature, of such a god, making him a god of goodness alone, would be contrary to human. 
Meta-physicians have eliminated the attributes of virile virtues, such as strength, bravery, and pride, from the concept of God. As a result, it deteriorated into an insubstantial ideal like Spinoza's God, pure spirit, Absolute, or thing in itself.

Nietzsche believed, Buddhism was the only positive religion because it struggles against actual suffering, Christianity, on the contrary, struggles against sin, while suffering can have a redemptive quality. Nietzsche claimed that Buddhism is "beyond good and evil" because "it puts the self-deception that lies in moral concepts behind it".

Concepts such as "God", "moral world–order", "sinner", "Redeemer", "free will", "beyond", "Last Judgment", and "immortal soul" are consciously employed in order to provide power to the church and its priests. Sinners are dependent on their priests for salvation, redemption, and forgiveness.
The priest lives upon sins; it is necessary to him that there be “sinning”.... Prime axiom: “God forgiveth him that repenteth”—in plain English, him that submitteth to the priest.
Israel's Yahweh was the expression of the Jewish's consciousness of power, of their pride and their national will, but later due to the Assyrian, their concept of God was falsified into a form similar to the Christian god and the concept of morality was falsified. Morality is no longer an expression of life and growth.
The public notion of this god now becomes merely a  weapon in the hands of clerical agitators, who interpret all happiness as a reward and all unhappiness as a punishment for obedience or disobedience to him, for “sin”: that most fraudulent of all imaginable interpretations, whereby a “moral order of the world” is set up.

For Nietzsche, Jesus was a peaceful rebel against the established order
Only then did the chasm of doubt yawn: “Who put him to death? who was his natural enemy?”—this question flashed like a lightning-stroke. Answer: dominant Judaism, its ruling class. From that moment, one found one’s self in revolt against the established order, and began to understand Jesus as in revolt against the established order.
Jesus did not want to redeem anyone. He wanted to show how to live. His legacy was his bearing and behavior. His legacy was his life not his death.
This “bearer of glad tidings” died as he lived and taught—not to “save mankind,” but to show mankind how to live. It was a way of life that he bequeathed to man: his demeanour before the judges, before the officers, before his accusers—his demeanour on the cross. He does not resist; he does not defend his rights; he makes no effort to ward off the most extreme penalty—more, he invites it.... And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in those, who do him evil.... Not to defend one’s self, not to show anger, not to lay blames.... On the contrary, to submit even to the Evil One—to love him....
Thereafter, the opposite kind of life was called Christian. Belief in redemption through Christ is not originally Christian. Genuine, original, primitive Christianity is not a faith. It is state of being". 
There was only one Christian, and he died on the cross....Only Christian practice, a life such as he lived who died on the cross, is Christian... 
Jesus' wanted his death on the cross to be an example of how a person can be free from resentment, revenge, and rebellion. 
"And if someone goes through fire for his doctrine — what does that prove?" 
The “kingdom of God” is not something that men wait for: it had no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it is not going to come at a “millennium”—it is an experience of the heart, it is everywhere and it is nowhere....
 The disciples, however, wanted revenge against the Jewish ruling class and high priests who had delivered him to Pilate. They elevated Jesus into being the Messiah and Son of God and promised future judgment and punishment in the kingdom of God. This was in opposition to Jesus' doctrine that everyone could be a child of God and experience Heaven in their present lives by acting in a gentle, loving manner.

Paul made immortality the main point when he said "...If Christ did not rise from the dead, then all our faith is in vain!." Paul used the promise of life after death as a way to seize tyrannical power over the masses of lower-class people. This changed Christianity from a peace movement that achieves actual happiness into a religion whose final judgment offers possible resurrection and eternal life.
Hard upon the heels of the “glad tidings” came the worst imaginable: those of Paul. In Paul is incarnated the very opposite of the “bearer of glad tidings”; he represents the genius for hatred, the vision of hatred, the relentless logic of hatred. What, indeed, has not this dysangelist sacrificed to hatred! Above all, the Saviour: he nailed him to his own cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death of Christ, the meaning and the law of the whole gospels—nothing was left of all this after that counterfeiter in hatred had reduced it to his uses. Surely not reality; surely not historical truth!
Paul falsified the history of Christianity, the history of Israel, and the history of mankind by making them all seem to be a preparation for the crucifixion. The meaning of the God on the Cross is that everything that suffers is divine.
The figure of the Saviour, his teaching, his way of life, his death, the meaning of his death, even the consequences of his death—nothing remained untouched, nothing remained in even remote contact with reality. Paul simply shifted the centre of gravity of that whole life to a place behind this existence—in the lie of the “risen” Jesus. At bottom, he had no use for the life of the Saviour—what he needed was the death on the cross, and something more.
Again I remind you of Paul’s priceless saying: “And God hath chosen the weak things of the world, the foolish things of the world, the base things of the world, and things which are despised”: this was the formula; in hoc signo the décadence triumphed.—God on the cross—is man always to miss the frightful inner significance of this symbol?—Everything that suffers, everything that hangs on the cross, is divine.... We all hang on the cross, consequently we are divine.... We alone are divine.... Christianity was thus a victory: a nobler attitude of mind was destroyed by it—Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity
This sickness of Christianity came to halt during the church's reign in the renaissance but continued again due to the reformations by Luther which took the power from the pope and returned Christianity to its sickness
I see before me the possibility of a perfectly heavenly enchantment and spectacle:—it seems to me to scintillate with all the vibrations of a fine and delicate beauty, and within it there is an art so divine, so infernally divine, that one might search in vain for thousands of years for another such possibility; I see a spectacle so rich in significance and at the same time so wonderfully full of paradox that it should arouse all the gods on Olympus to immortal laughter—Cæsar Borgia as pope!... Am I understood?... Well then, that would have been the sort of triumph that I alone am longing for today—: by it Christianity would have been swept away!
Luther saw only the depravity of the papacy at the very moment when the oppo site was becoming apparent: the old corruption, the peccatum originale, Christianity itself, no longer occupied the papal chair! Instead there was life! Instead there was the triumph of life! Instead there was a great yea to all lofty, beautiful and daring things!... And Luther restored the church: he attacked it.... The Renaissance—an event without meaning, a great futility!
Unlike the Jewish/Christian Bible, the Hindu Law–Book of Manu lies for a good purpose. It accepts life and gives power to masters. For example it says "there is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden." opposing the bible which says for example "to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband; ... it is better to marry than to burn"
it differs fundamentally from every kind of Bible: by means of it the nobles, the philosophers and the warriors keep the whip-hand over the majority; it is full of noble valuations, it shows a feeling of perfection, an acceptance of life, and triumphant feeling toward self and life—the sun shines upon the whole book.—All the things on which Christianity vents its fathomless vulgarity—for example, procreation, women and marriage—are here handled earnestly, with reverence and with love and confidence.
Why did Christianity trample down the culture of Islam? For Nietzsche Islam accepted life and showed the will to power, even although the Crusades was a demonstration of the will to power, it was an ill will for Nietzsche, it was a will of a thief.
Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient civilization, and later it also destroyed for us the whole harvest of Mohammedan civilization. The wonderful culture of the Moors in Spain, which was fundamentally nearer to us and appealed more to our senses and tastes than that of Rome and Greece, wastrampled down (—I do not say by what sort of feet—) Why? Because it had to thank noble and manly instincts for its origin—because it said yes to life, even to the rare and refined luxuriousness of Moorish life!... The crusaders later made war on something before which it would have been more fitting for them to have grovelled in the dust—a civilization beside which even that of our nineteenth century seems very poor and very “senile.”—What they wanted, of course, was booty: the orient was rich.... Let us put  aside our prejudices! The crusades were a higher form of piracy, nothing more!
The church even ranges itself against cleanliness (—the first Christian order after the banishment of the Moors closed the public baths, of which there were 270 in Cordova alone).
Nietzsche then attacks other ideologies that make all people "equal" so teaching them slave morality.
Whom do I hate most heartily among the rabbles of today? The rabble of Socialists, the apostles to the Chandala, who undermine the workingman’s instincts, his pleasure, his feeling of contentment with his petty existence—who make him envious and teach him revenge.... Wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the assertion of “equal” rights
For Nietzsche, science is the replacement of god but both are wrong, because science worships truth and declares it to be objective and for Nietzsche nothing is objective because the only truth is the will to power and the will is subjective.
Science makes men godlike—it is all up with priests and gods when man becomes scientific.
In accordance with his revaluation of all values, Nietzsche suggested that time be calculated from the date of this book, instead of from the date of Christ's birth. Year One would begin, then, on September 30, 1888.
And mankind reckons time from the dies nefastus when this fatality befell—from the first day of Christianity!—Why not rather from its last?—From today?—The transvaluation of all values!...

On The Genealogy Of Morality Summary

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 9/19/2013

"'Good and Evil', 'Good and Bad'"


Nietzsche aims to show that the valuations "good/bad" and "good/evil" have distinct origins and that the two senses of "good" reflect radically opposed meanings. Originally, there were two kinds of people "the noble, the powerful, the superior, and the high-minded" and the "low, low-minded, and plebeian." Nietzsche calls this feeling of the superior over the inferior the pathos of distance. Each kind had his own moral codes. The first, “master” morality, comes from the early rulers and conquerors, "blonde beasts," as Nietzsche calls them. "Blonde" here is a reference to lions rather than to hair color, as Nietzsche bestows this name not only on Vikings and Goths, but also on Arab and Japanese nobility, who judged their own power, wealth, and success to be “good” and the poverty and wretchedness of those they ruled over to be “bad” so it gave the "good/bad" distinction. 
As is well known, the priests are the most evil enemies — but why? Because they are the most impotent. It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in the world history have always been priests; likewise the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when compared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness.
Then out of hatred for the powerful,a "slave revolt in morality" happened, and gave birth to the second kind of morality, "slave" morality, originating with priests who despise the warrior caste and condemn their lustful power as "evil", while calling their own state of poverty and self-denial "good" so it gave the "good/evil" distinction. Nietzsche associates this morality with Judaism, for it is the bridge which led to the slave revolt of Christian morality by the oppressed masses of the Roman Empire. Christian love is born from hatred. This slave morality turns master morality on its head. Nietzsche worries that it has rendered us all mediocre. Modern humans, who have inherited the mantle of slave morality, prefer safety and comfort to conquest and risk. The slave morality of the priestly caste focuses the attention on the evil of others and on the afterlife, distracting people from enjoying the present. But this kind of morality had its benefits  in allowing resentment and hatred to grow in him, In having to rely on patience, secrets, and scheming, the man of resentment develops an inner life and ultimately becomes cleverer than the noble man. This kind of morality was broken for a moment by the Renaissance, but reasserted by the Reformation (which, in Nietzsche's view, restored the Church), and refreshed again by the French Revolution (in which the "resentment instincts of the rabble" triumphed).

In support of his argument, Nietzsche remarks on the similarity between the German word for "bad" and the words for "plain" and "simple." By contrast, he notes, in most languages, the word for "good" derives from the same root as the words for "powerful" or "masters" or "rich." Nietzsche also remarks on how "dark" and "black" are used as negative terms, presumably because of the dark-haired peoples of Europe who were overrun by blonde, Aryan conquerors. He notes the association of "good" with "war" and "warlike.". Nietzsche notes that almost all the ancient Greek words denoting the lower orders of society are related to variants on the word for "unhappy." 

It is not surprising that the lambs should bear a grudge against the great birds of prey, but that is no reason for blaming the great birds of prey for taking the little lambs. And when the lambs say among themselves, "Those birds of prey are evil, and he who is as far removed from being a bird of prey, who is rather its opposite, a lamb, — is he not good?" then there is nothing to cavil at in the setting up of this ideal, though it may also be that the birds of prey will regard it a little sneeringly, and per-chance say to themselves, "We bear no grudge against them, these good lambs, we even like them: nothing is tastier than a tender lamb." To require of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a wish to overpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish to become master, a thirst for enemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require of weakness that it should express itself as strength.
Nietzsche illustrates the contrast between the two kinds of morality by reference to a bird of prey and a lamb. Nietzsche imagines that the lambs may judge the birds of prey to be evil for killing and consider themselves good for not killing. These judgments are a mistake, since lambs do not refrain from killing out of some kind of moral loftiness but simply because they are unable to kill. Similarly, it is a mistake to hold beasts of prey to be "evil",it's as if blaming them for existing, for their actions stem from their inherent strength, rather than any malicious intent. One should not blame them for their "thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs". Lambs have no right "to make the bird of prey accountable for being a bird of prey". We can only condemn birds of prey for killing if we assume that the “doer,” the bird of prey, is somehow detachable from the “deed,” the killing. 

Nietzsche argues that there is no doer behind the deed, taking as an example the sentence, “lightning flashes.” There is no such thing as lightning separate from the flash. Our assumption that there are doers who are somehow distinct from deeds in reality is simply a prejudice inspired by the subject–predicate form of grammar. Slave morality detaches subject from predicate, doer from deed, and identifies the subject with a “soul,” which is then liable to judgment. Slave morality assumes that "that the strong may freely choose to be weak". Frustratingly, for Nietzsche, it is very difficult to wrap our minds around this idea that there is no doer behind the deed because every written expression of this idea relies on grammatical structures that reinforce the contrary idea.

Slave morality depends on the belief in a subject (or a "soul" or a "free will") which is independent of its deeds, so that it can interpret its weakness as freedom, and its inaction as praiseworthy and as a result guilt is now associated with accountability and responsibility: you are guilty because you could have and should have done otherwise. At first glance, it might appear that Nietzsche is denying free will: which is a mistake, Nietzsche would rather claim that there is no bird of prey independent of its will. To talk about a bird of prey as "having" free will is again to make the subject- predicate error. Will is not a "thing" that one "has": a will is, essentially, what one is. The bird of prey is its will, and that will wills the death of the lamb. Not to kill the lamb would require a different will, that is, a different creature altogether. If we say the bird of prey should not have killed the lamb, we are saying that the bird of prey should have been a different animal. So in a sense Nietzsche says we can't be held accountable for our actions in the sense of law or morals, we are only accountable for our actions in the sense of the will that drives these actions. Thus, in Nietzsche's view, murderers who kill for the sake of money do not transgress any external moral code, but they allow themselves to be controlled by money and thereby show themselves to be weak-willed.


"'Guilt', 'Bad Conscience', and the Like"

That every will must consider every other will its equal — would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness.

Once the slave morality prevails, By blaming the privileged people for their suffering, the descendants of the powerful classes begin to buy into the slave morality, accepting that exercising their power is a moral sin. They start to feel the 'guilt', they feel guilty for having the things that are (now) condemned, e.g., power, wealth, privilege, etc.

This concept of guilt (Schuld) derives from the concept of debt (Schulden) as it appears from the two German words, like when a debtor receives a loan from a creditor, the debtor is in debt now, the creditor receives the loan value with interest in return from the debtor, if a creditor could not have his money back, he could have the pleasure of harming his debtor by punishment. Same is the case in any crime, the culprit receives pleasure from a crime against the victim, the culprit feels the guilt, the victim receives pleasure from punishment as a compensation against the culprit  Punishment, then, is a transaction in which the injury to the autonomous individual is compensated for by the pain inflicted on the culprit. Punishment was not intended to make the debtor feel badly but simply to bring pleasure to the creditor. Punishment was cruel but cheerful: there were no hard feelings afterward. We find the origins of conscience, guilt, and duty in the festiveness of cruelty: their origins were "like the beginnings of everything great on earth, soaked in blood thoroughly and for a long time."

A society with laws is like a creditor: In a state when someone breaks the law, they have harmed society and society can exact punishment. The concept of justice in effect takes punishment out of the hands of individuals by claiming that, in a society, it is not individuals but laws that are transgressed, and so it is the laws, not individuals, that must exact punishment. Under such conditions, man who is by nature a nomadic hunter, find himself constricted, so in order to survive, he had to rely on his conscious mind rather than our unconscious instincts; so instincts that cannot be released outwardly must be turned inward. Instead of roaming in the wilderness, man now turns himself into "an adventure, a place of torture" where "man's suffering of man, of himself". In so doing, we developed an inner life and bad conscience. Bad conscience is thus man's instinct for freedom (his "will to power") "driven back, suppressed, imprisoned within". While this inner life led to the development of slave morality and bad conscience, Nietzsche also mentions some significant improvements: we became "interesting," we developed the concept of beauty, we distanced ourselves from other animals, we learned to control ourselves and understand ourselves. 

Nietzsche traces the development of the bad conscience beginning with the sense of indebtedness early tribe members must have felt toward the founders of the tribe. In a tribe, the current generation always pays homage to its ancestors, offering sacrifices to them as a demonstration of gratitude to them. As the power of the tribe grows the need to offer thanks to the ancestors does not decline, but rather increases as it has ever more reason to pay homage to the ancestors and to fear them. At the maximum of fear, the ancestor is "necessarily transfigured into a god". The Christian God also produces the maximum feeling of guilty indebtedness. This debt cannot possibly be repaid, and so we develop the concepts of eternal damnation and of all people being born with irredeemable original sin. Nietzsche suggests that not all Gods serve to reinforce bad conscience, the Greek gods for example serve as a celebration of their animal instincts, as a force to ward off the bad conscience.

Nietzsche proved that origins and utility are worlds apart. Anything that has existed for any length of time has been given all sorts of different interpretations, meanings, and purposes by different powers that master and subdue it. That something has a purpose or utility is only a sign that a "will to power" is acting upon it. Things and concepts have no inherent purpose, but are given purpose by the different forces and wills that act upon them. that's why he preferred the word "Genealogy" instead of origin. As Foucault in his essay "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" said: "And this is what I would call genealogy, that is, a form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects etc". So unlike an origin, genealogy has no fixed starting point and no essential features, just a gradual and often haphazard and sometimes contradictory progression from one state to another for subjects that "we tend to feel [are] without history". Therefore, all truths are questionable.
I will at this point give a scheme that has suggested itself to me, a scheme itself based on comparatively small and accidental material. — Punishment, as rendering the criminal harmless and incapable of further injury. — Punishment, as compensation for the injury sustained by the injured party, in any form whatsoever (including the form of sentimental compensation). — Punishment, as an isolation of that which disturbs the equilibrium, so as to prevent the further spreading of the disturbance. — Punishment as a means of inspiring fear of those who determine and execute the punishment. — Punishment as a kind of compensation for advantages which the wrongdoer has up to that time enjoyed (for example, when he is utilised as a slave in the mines) . — Punishment, as the elimination of an element of decay (sometimes of a whole branch, as according to the Chinese laws, consequently as a means to the purification of the race, or the preservation of a social type). — Punishment as a festival, as the violent oppression and humiliation of an enemy that has at last been subdued. — Punishment as a mnemonic, whether for him who suffers the punishment — the so-called "correction," or for the witnesses of its administration. — Punishment, as the payment of a fee stipulated for by the power which protects the evil-doer from the excesses of revenge. Punishment, as a compromise with the natural phenomenon of revenge, in so far as revenge is still maintained and claimed as a privilege by the stronger races. — Punishment as a declaration and measure of war against an enemy of peace, of law, of order, of authority, who is fought by society with the weapons which war provides, as a spirit dangerous to the community, as a breaker of the contract on which the community is based, as a rebel, a traitor, and a breaker of the peace. This list is certainly not complete; it is obvious that punishment is overloaded with utilities of all kinds.
Nietzsche identifies willing with meaning and interpretation. The will to power is the fundamental drive in the universe and it gives every action its meaning or interpretation. For example, my harming you might be an act of bullying or an act of self-defense. In the first case, there is a very crude will to power acting, where I harm you for the feeling of power it gives me. In the second case, I am acting out of an instinct of self-preservation. In both cases, the deed itself might be the same, but the will that drives me to act interprets the deed in very different ways. the act of punishing has always been the same, but the meaning of that act has been interpreted very differently over the years. The meaning is independent of and inessential to the act itself. We see the world in terms of things and deeds rather than wills as Nietzsche does, we are unable to separate the meanings of punishment from the deed itself, and assume that the deed has always had the same meaning. For instance, the act of punishment has been at times a celebration of one's power, at times an act of cruelty, at times a simple tit-for-tat. 
There is only a seeing from a perspective, only a "knowing" from a perspective, and the more emotions we express over a thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we train on the same thing, the more complete will be our "idea" of that thing, our "objectivity." But the elimination of the will altogether, the switching off of the emotions all and sundry, granted that we could do so, vvhat! would not that be called intellectual castration? 
According to Nietzsche, then, a belief in an absolute truth or an absolute anything is to give in to one particular meaning, one particular interpretation of a thing. It is essentially to allow oneself to be dominated by a particular will. A will that wishes to remain free will shun absolutes of all kinds and try to look at a matter from as many different perspectives as possible in order to gain its own. This doctrine that has deeply influenced postmodern thought is called "perspectivism."


"What do ascetic ideals mean?"

The ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even desiring — all this means — let us have the courage to grasp it — a will for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains a will! — and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning — man will wish Nothingness rather than not wish at all.

Ascetic ideals spring up spontaneously everywhere on earth, in every time and culture. There must be something desirable in ascetic ideals that it should be so universal although it is a contradiction: it is the will to stop willing, life turned against itself. Nietzsche says that ascetic ideals are born of spiritual sickness as result of a slave morality. The ascetic ideal among the masses is an expression of a sick will to power. The sick are suffering from life, seeing life as a misfortune, and in the ascetic ideal they find a means of asserting themselves. Any positive act of will (pursuing health, happiness, strength, etc.) is beyond their means, and so they cannot will these things. Instead, they will nothingness, the only thing they can successfully will. As Nietzsche claims at the beginning of this essay, "Man would rather will nothingness than not will". The ascetic has to contend with the fact that he secretly desires these things. After all, it was this fact that created such hatred and resentment towards the powerful who own those things in the first place. So the ascetic life, for the sick, is not a goal, but a path away from life toward something different and better, to get those things but in another life.

The will to power is the fundamental drive that motivates all things. This suggestion might contrast with the suggestion that our fundamental drive is the will to life. There are a number of reasons for seeing power as more important to us than life. For instance, the martyr who is willing to die for a cause is essentially saying "you can kill me, you can do anything to my body, but you cannot touch my principles because I am powerful enough to resist all your threats." This martyr clearly values that power of independence more than life itself. Nietzsche even suggests that acts of generosity are ultimately motivated by a will to power. If I do you a favor, I am essentially showing you that I have the power to help you, to put you in my debt.

The extinction of the will is mostly associated with Indian philosophy, and has come to the West largely thanks to Schopenhauer. The Hindu ideal of reuniting with Brahman and the Buddhist ideal of Nirvana both laud the extinction of the ego and the total disappearance of the distinct self into a greater whole. The water drop, so to speak, ceases to see itself as a water drop and comes to see itself as a part of the ocean. 
The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.
Nietzsche sees the majority of humanity as sick and from this sickness grows resentment  nihilism, and everything else Nietzsche despises.
It is certain that from the time of Kant every type of transcendentalist is playing a winning game — they are emancipated from the theologians; what luck! — he has revealed to them that secret art, by which they can now pursue their "heart's desire" on their own responsibility, and with all the respectability of science.
The resentment of the masses demands that they find someone to blame for their suffering, and this search for a scapegoat can be violent and dangerous. The ascetic priest serves the purpose of altering the direction of the resentment  by persuading the masses that they themselves, and no one else, are to blame for their suffering. The ascetic ideal because it explains life to them; it explains why they must suffer. This renders them harmless. However, the priest only serves to ease the suffering of the sick without trying to cure the sickness itself. Religion does not give the sick strength so much as it eases their sense of displeasure at life. It organizes them in herds where the individual will weakens by seeing itself in service of a larger community. The will becomes "tamer," less capable of asserting itself and dominating others. Thus, the ascetic priest does nothing to "cure" the "sickness" of the "herd". The herd doesn't have the option of being strong, and so for them, ascetic ideals may be the best alternative. Nietzsche's main objection at this point is that these ascetic ideals have become so dominant that they have poisoned our entire species and harmed some healthy spirits that have no need of slave morality.
Science itself now needs a justification (which is not for a minute to say that there is such a justification). Turn in this context to the most ancient and the most modern philosophers: they all fail to realize the extent of the need of a justification on the part of the Will for Truth — here is a gap in every philosophy — what is it caused by? Because up to the present the ascetic ideal dominated all philosophy, because Truth was fixed as Being, as God, as the Supreme Court of Appeal, because Truth was not allowed to be a problem.
Science and scholarship are not alternatives to the ascetic ideals of religion. They simply replace the worship of God with the worship of truth. A healthy spirit must question the value of truth. 
When the Christian Crusaders in the East came into collision with that invincible order of assassins, that order of free spirits par excellence, whose lowest grade lives in a state of discipline such as no order of monks has ever attained, then in some way or other they managed to get an inkling of that symbol and tally- word, that was reserved for the highest grade alone as their secretum, "Nothing is true, everything is allowed," — in sooth, that was freedom of thought, thereby was taking leave of the very belief in truth.

The Birth of Tragedy

Posted by Ali Reda | Posted in | Posted on 9/11/2013

The death of Greek tragedy left a great void whose effects were felt profoundly, far and wide; as once Greek sailors in Tiberius' time heard the distressing cry 'the god Pan is dead' issuing from a lonely island, now, throughout the Hellenic world, this cry resounded like an agonized lament: 'Tragedy is dead! Poetry itself died with it! Away, away with you, puny, stunted imitators! Away with you to Hades, and eat your fill of the old masters' crumbs!'
Nietzsche states that the creation of art depends on a conflict between two opposing forces, each battling for control over the existence of humanity, the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian”, yet neither side ever prevails eternally, a natural balance always occurs. Apollo is the Greek god of light and reason, characterized by a measured restraint which reinforces a strong form of individualization. Dionysus is the Greek god of wine and music, characterized by a frenzy of self-forgetting embracing its chaos and nihilism in which it dissolves in a primal unity with others and with nature. For example, the Promethean myth, with its theme of active striving against the bounds of natural law, is strongly Dionysian. However, in its yearning for justice, the Promethean myth is also Apollonian.
Wherever the Dionysian prevailed, the Apollonian was checked and destroyed.... wherever the first Dionysian onslaught was successfully withstood, the authority and majesty of the Delphic god Apollo exhibited itself as more rigid and menacing than ever.
Form is Apollonian, since form individualizes objects; thus, sculpture is the most Apollonian form of arts. Rational thought is also Apollonian since it is structured and makes distinctions, but those objects are a phenomena so they are the world as "representation" or illusion or a dream. Schopenhauer distinguishes between objects by his principium individuationis, which means that separate objects occupy discrete portions of space-time. And since the noumenal is beyond time and space it is therefore one and undifferentiable; plurality can't apply to it and this noumenal is the conception of the world as "will" or reality which is Dionysian. Drunkenness, madness, ecstasy and all forms of enthusiasm are Dionysian as they break down a man's individual self, for in such states man gives up his individuality and submerges himself in a greater whole. Since music appeals directly to man's instinctive, chaotic emotions and not to his formally reasoning mind, therefore it is the most Dionysian form of arts.
There is an old legend that king Midas for a long time hunted the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, in the forests, without catching him. When Silenus finally fell into the king’s hands, the king asked what was the best thing of all for men, the very finest. The daemon remained silent, motionless and inflexible, until, compelled by the king, he finally broke out into shrill laughter and said these words, “Suffering creature, born for a day, child of accident and toil, why are you forcing me to say what would give you the greatest pleasure not to hear? The very best thing for you is totally unreachable: not to have been born, not to exist, to benothing. The second best thing for you, however, is this—to die soon.”
The combination of these elements in one form of art gave birth to tragedy. The Apollonian element gave form to the Dionysian rituals of music, dance and passion which manifested in the the chorus being satyrs, making it a coherent piece of art. 
"Here the illusion of culture was wiped away by the primordial image of man; here the real man revealed himself, the bearded satyr, who cried out with joy to his god."
The audience participated with and as the chorus. What the Greeks saw on stage was the incarnation of their united primal consciousness. The Apollonian element was found in the dialogue and actors so the audience have an Apollonian dream vision of themselves, of the energy they're embodying. The Apollonian appearances represent a vision that the chorus generates and then celebrates in song. For Nietzsche, the chorus is the only reality of the drama.
"Art approaches, as a saving, healing magician. Art alone can turn those thoughts of disgust at the horror or absurdity of existence into imaginary constructs which permit living to continue."
Appearance (Apollonian) is essential to shield them from the truth of human suffering (Dionysian) and save them from despair which otherwise would destroy them. The two main aspects of a tragedy are music and the tragic hero. The hero carries the suffering of the tragedy on his shoulders and thus absolves us from our burden of reality. By preparing himself for a higher existence through his own destruction, not his victories, The tragic hero serves as an example for us to accept our defeat because it is the only way to redeem ourselves. The Dionysian element of music, makes us realize that the hero is only a phenomenon, and that his existence cannot be destroyed by his death. Thus the Greek find self-affirmation not in another life, but in the terror and ecstasy of the performance of tragedies so man could live creatively in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life. This relation emphasizes the harmony that can be found within one's chaotic experience. Art becomes a necessity for existence.
"We cannot help but see Socrates as the turning-point, the vortex of world history"
For Nietzsche, the golden age of Greek tragedy ended by Euripides and Socrates. Rather than presenting tragic heroes, Euripides reduced the use of the chorus and gave his characters all the weaknesses of ordinary human beings, making it more reflective of the realities of daily life. Socrates insisted that there must be reasons to justify everything and that reason opposed instinct. In his view, instinct is a lack of insight and wrongful acts are a lack of knowledge. 
But for Socrates, tragedy did not even seem to "tell what's true", quite apart from the fact that it addresses "those without much wit", not the philosopher: another reason for giving it a wide berth. Like Plato, he numbered it among the flattering arts which represent only the agreeable, not the useful, and therefore required that his disciples abstain most rigidly from such unphilosophical stimuli — with such success that the young tragedian, Plato, burnt his writings in order to become a pupil of Socrates.
For Nietzsche, rationality makes life meaningless because it does nothing to justify existence and the world. Life finds meaning only through art because it is the only thing that brings us to a deeper level of experience than rationality. The world is meaningful, not as objects of knowledge but as artistic experiences.
“it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.”
Nietzsche describes the Naive Artist (the Apollonian artist) as the one who creates forms that have the most beautiful appearances; for example Homer is the greatest naive artist, but he is inferior to the tragic artist (the Dionysian artist), but also superior to the operatic artist (the Socratic culture artist). Opera is the greatest manifestation of art in the the Socratic culture in Nietzsche's opinion, because in opera speech is mixed with music to form a semi-song. However, because the singer is torn between speaking clearly and showing his musical talent as a singer, his art is neither Apollonian nor Dionysian.

Nietzsche calls those works of the Naive Artist “an illusion of an illusion”, the first illusion is the representation of our real world and the second one is the Apollonian element in the work of art itself. For example, Raphael's painting, "Transfiguration", represents two states of appearance. 
In his Transfiguration, the bottom half shows us, with the possessed boy, the despairing porters, the helplessly frightened disciples, the mirror image of the eternal primordial pain, the sole basis of the world. The “illusion” here is the reflection of the eternal contradiction, of the father of things. Now, out of this illusion there rises up, like an ambrosial fragrance, a new world of illusion, like a vision, invisible to those trapped in the first scene—something illuminating and hovering in the purest painless ecstasy, a shining vision to contemplate with eyes wide open.

Nietzsche distinguishes between three kinds of culture: the Alexandrian, or Socratic (rational thinking to save the world); the Hellenic, or artistic (mirroring beauty by illusion); and the Buddhist, or tragic (with its longing for nothingness and absence of will). We belong to an Alexandrian culture which makes us slaves of reason and so it's bound for self-destruction because it doesn't fulfill the chaos inside man. Man will remain eternally hungry until he revolts on those foundations of reason.
People should take note: Alexandrian culture requires a slave class in order to be able to exist over time, but with its optimistic view of existence, it denies the necessity for such a class and thus, when the effect of its beautiful words of seduction and reassurance about the “dignity of human beings” and the “dignity of work” has worn off, it gradually moves towards a horrific destruction. There is nothing more frightening than a barbarian slave class which has learned to think of its existence as an injustice and is preparing to take revenge, not only for itself, but for all generations.
The only way to rescue our modern culture from this destructive fate is to revive the Dionysian spirit. Nietzsche sees hope in Richard Wagner, because he creates music that expresses the deepest urges of the human will. For Nietzsche this is the first step in the rebirth of tragedy.
But what changes come upon the weary desert of our culture, so darkly described, when it is touched by the magic of Dionysus! A storm seizes everything decrepit, rotten, broken, stunted; shrouds it in a whirling red cloud of dust and carries it into the air like a vulture. In vain confusion we seek for all that has vanished; for what we see has risen as if from beneath the earth into the gold light, so full and green, so luxuriantly alive, immeasurable and filled with yearning. Tragedy sits in sublime rapture amidst this abundance of life, suffering and delight, listening to a far-off, melancholy song which tells of the Mothers of Being, whose names are Delusion, Will, Woe. Yes, my friends, join me in my faith in this Dionysiac life and the rebirth of tragedy. The age of Socratic man is past: crown yourselves with ivy, grasp the thyrsus and do not be amazed if tigers and panthers lie down fawning at your feet. Now dare to be tragic men, for you will be redeemed. You shall join the Dionysian procession from India to Greece! Gird yourselves for a hard battle, but have faith in the miracles of your god!