NIETZSCHE’S EARTH: THE GROUND OF VALUATION IN THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

Year 2020, Issue: 29, 109 - 134, 16.05.2020

Musa Duman

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss the place of the notion of “earth” (Erde) in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche imagines a culture that is profoundly loyal to the earth, to becoming, to the concrete reality and says no to any otherworldly aspirations. At the center of this culture lies an emphasis on love, more specifically on a procreative eros. For Nietzsche, modernity represents an enormous violence exerted on body and on creative life energies, which actually proves to be a self-violence whose presupposition is a culture based on an unbounded faith in rationality, of rational explicability of reality (earth), which Nietzsche associates with the priority accorded to truth itself in the Western tradition. Nietzsche, however, envisages an earth-minded humanity serving the meaning of the earth and places this in opposition to the alienation of modernity.

Keywords

Earth, Culture, Eros, Rationality, Modernity, Valuation, Truth

NIETZSCHE’S EARTH: THE GROUND OF VALUATION IN THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA

Abstract

Bu makalede Nietzsche’nin Böyle Buyurdu Zerdüşt adlı eserinde arz (Erde) kavramının yerini mütalaa ediyorum. Nietzsche arza, olagelişe, somut realiteye tümüyle sadık ve öte-dünyacı heves ve temayüllere hayır diyen bir kültür hayal etmektedir. Bu kültürün merkezinde aşka, daha spesifik olarak prokreatif eros’a yapılan bir vurgu yatmaktadır. Nietzsche’ye göre, modernite bedene ve yaratıcı yaşam enerjisine yöneltilmiş muazzam bir şiddeti temsil etmektedir. Bu gerçekte insanın kendine yönelttiği bir şiddettir, temeli ise rasyonaliteye, gerçekliğin (arz) rasyonel açıklanabilirliğine yönelik sınırsız bir inançtır. Nietzsche Batı geleneğinde hakikate izafe edilen önceliği bu tutumla birlikte ele alır. Nietzsche, buna mukabil, arzın anlamına hizmet eden arz-bilinçli bir beşeriyet tasavvur etmekte ve bunu modern yabancılaşmanın karşısına yerleştirmektedir.

Keywords

Earth, Culture, Eros, Rationality, Modernity, Valuation, Truth

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