Nietzsche's and Mann's Divergent Views on Wagner

Richard Wagner (Public doain)

I recently finished reading the diaries of Thomas Mann for a second time now. The first was perhapes 30 years ago. (I'd have to serach my own diaries to find the precise year) When I read this volume back then it was a library book. Earlier this summer I found it on the free books discard shelf, a real steal.

The diary entries cover only a portion of Mann's life and career. In part one we read entries from 1918 to 1921. The diary then jumps ahead to 1933 and covers the six year preceding the start of World War II.

A bit of personal trivia: The first entry is September 11, which happens to be my birthday.

There are a number of interesting details here beyond the historical context of these two periods in his life. Throughout Mann records what he is reading--Tolstoy, Cervantes, Proust, etc. He also makes note of what times he goes to bed (nearly always after reading a while), what time he wakens (usually 8 a.m.) and what medicines he is taking. He records whom he is corresponding with, and what writing project or projects he is working on.

There are numerous entries devoted to Richard Wagner, whom he writes about and goes on a lecture tour to discuss. What interested me is how divergent his views on Wagner were from Friedrich Nietzche's.

For both Thomas Mann and Friedrich Nietzsche the German composer Richard Wagner was a towering figure in 19th-century European culture. While both thinkers engaged deeply with Wagner’s music and philosophy, their perspectives reflecteddifferent relationships to his legacy and their own evolving philosophies.

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In his early years Nietzsche had been a passionate Wagner enthusiast. Later, however, he became one of Wagner’s most severe critics, devoting a whole book to the guy, The Case of Wagner (1888).

Initially, Nietzsche was captivated by Wagner’s music, seeing in it a revolutionary spirit that resonated with his own philosophical ideals of breaking away from the constraints of bourgeois morality. Nietzsche admired Wagner’s grand operatic visions, particularly the blending of myth, music, and drama to create what Wagner termed the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). Nietzsche saw in Wagner’s early operas, like The Ring of the Nibelung, a reflection of the Dionysian spirit—a celebration of primal, life-affirming forces that Nietzsche explored in his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy (1872).

Friedrich Nietzsche

However, Nietzsche’s view of Wagner dramatically shifted as he began to see Wagner as embodying the very decadence and cultural decline that he despised. Ironically, when I read The Case of Wagner I was flying to "Sin City" on a business trip and back. There is probably no greater symbol of empty decadence than Las Vegas. The book itself is a scathing, personal attack on an artist he once revered.*

By way of contrast Mann admired Wagner and was influenced by his synthesis of music and mythology. Mann appreciated the way Wagner blended Germanic legends with profound philosophical ideas. He saw Wagner's genius and admired his innovations. In his essay The Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner (1933), Mann grappled with the duality of Wagner’s genius: the grandeur of his artistic vision alongside his troubling associations with German nationalism and proto-fascist ideas. Mann recognized Wagner's flaws while still appreciating his art.  Mann was concerned that Wagner's work could be exploited by reactionary forces, a hunch that turned out to be right in the 30's.

  

The key difference between Nietzsche and Mann’s views on Wagner lies in the depth of their disillusionment. Nietzsche’s break with Wagner was total and deeply personal, stemming from philosophical disillusionment with Wagner’s later works. Mann, while critical of Wagner’s political and moral implications, maintained a more balanced view, appreciating his artistic genius while recognizing his dangerous cultural influence.  

As you reflect on your lifetime of interests and passions, what have been your greatest disillusionments? What did you learn from these experiences?

There's No Business Like Show Business

Show business is the entertainment industry. It includes all aspects of creating, producing, and distributing entertainment, such as music, film, television, theater, and live performance. Show business is a global industry that employs millions of people and generates billions of dollars in revenue each year.

The term "show business" is thought to have originated in the early 19th century, when it was used to describe the business of putting on shows and theatrical productions. Over time, the term has come to encompass all aspects of the entertainment industry, from the creation of content to its distribution and consumption.

But also, over time, this tendency to turn everything into entertainment has spread into nearly every market crevice like an oil slick on a Minnesota lake. It was probably easy for Muhammed Ali to transform boxing with his audacious antics, helped in large part by Howard Cosell standing by with his Wide World of Sports megaphone.

With the advent of television it was inevitable that sports--from football and baseball to basketball, hockey and golf--would become more about entertainment than the games. Sure, the players were serious about bringing home titles and championship rings, but the big bucks rolled in when media moguls learned how to turn these competitive games into "stories."

Scottish thinker Thomas Carlyle once called economics "the dismal science." But even this has been turned into an entertainment vehicle by the likes of the flamboyant, volcanic Jim Cramer. Even NPR presents an entertaining look at the markets, albeit with a different tone. Informative? Yes, but similarly recognizing that to keep listeners coming back there has to be some crafting taking place. "Now, let's look at the numbers."

In the realm of crime things have gotten especially bizarre. Today while browsing X (formerly known as Twitter) I saw a video of a woman violently assaulting a 13 year old girl in a store. As many as ten or more onlookers stood their watching and recording it on their cell phones, most likely to share on social media themselves. No one intervened.

When I was a kid I had a cousin in Ohio whose father was a volunteer assistant fire chief. They had a squawk box in their house so that when there was an accident or fire or some other incident my uncle could quickly take off to assist. Today, there are people who buy these squawk boxes just to listen to what's happening in the realm of law and disorder. Why wait till you read it in the paper or see it on TV? Listen as it happens.

And of course, there's politics. Elections must one of the strangest forms of entertainment devised by humankind. The debates? How deep can you go into a topic when you have one minute for a rebuttal.

Even we ourselves have been swept up in this show biz stance toward the world around us. From the way we present ourselves on social media to the way some people interact with their colleagues at work, we are constantly performing for others.

What are Instagram and Tik Tok all about? YouTube the same. "Look at me. I'm a star!" You bet you are. But what I want to know is what's underneath that veneer?

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Dali: Madman or Genius?

 

Dali: Madman or Genius?

“The sole difference between me and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!”
~Salvador Dali

Without doubt he was talented. And an individualist with enormous ego. Said Dali, “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”

Was Dali’s bizarre style a put-on to increase his marketability or was he simply a madman whose talents brought him critical acclaim, despite his ludicrous behavior?

According to the Masterpiece Paintings Gallery website, "Dali's ego and need for attention were never satisfied. His thirst for scandal was unquenchable. And 'the thought of not being recognized was unbearable', he said. He used to walk through the streets of New York ringing a bell whenever he felt people were not paying him enough attention. 'Every morning when I wake up I experience an exquisite joy -- the joy of being Salvador Dali -- and I ask myself in rapture what wonderful things this Salvador Dali is going to accomplish today.'”

As an art student I found Salvador Dali’s sensational work remarkably invigorating and inspirational. Inspirational on two levels… first, his extreme attention to detail and the skill of his painterliness, and second, for the evocative quality of his imagery.

Steve Martin, in his autobiography Born Standing Up, in passing mentions an incident during a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York whereupon he comes across Dali's Persistence of Memory. Martin was quite surprised at how small it was. Like Martin, the first piece I saw in person was this famous painting of melting clocks. At the time, Picasso’s stunning Guernica was on the wall just before I reached Dali’s piece. Guernica is enormous, and impressive. Just around the corner Dali’s Persistence of Memory was, in contrast, a tiny little thing, yet astonishing in its detail. When you look at plates of paintings in art books, both paintings might take a page of the book, and your mind just doesn’t quite grasp the reality.

My second Dali was the shocking/fascinating Soft Construction with Boiled Beans - Premonition of Civil War which hangs in a private collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is a wonderful museum, with the Dali piece accompanied by some of Marcel Duchamp’s most significant works, a great place to hang out if you are a masterpiece.

But if you seriously want to take in more than a piece or two, I strongly recommend you visit the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida which is wholly dedicated to this icon of Twentieth Century Surrealism.

While visiting the Dali Museum two springs ago, a tour guide told us a story about small sculpture composed of a lobster sitting on an old fashioned telephone rack. Dali, while dining, threw the lobster over his shoulder and it landed on the phone after knocking the handheld part off the receiver. He loved the look and made it “art.” Crazy or creative?

But the story that sealed my impression that he was a bit mad was when the tour guide said he went through a brief period in which he refused to say any two sentences in a row in the same language. So he would say something in Spanish, then French, then English, then Spanish, etc. This went on for days, maybe weeks. You can imagine the conversations that followed… or didn't.

If you've never been and you're anywhere near Tampa/St. Petersburg, you owe it to yourself to visit the Dali Museum. In contrast to Persistence, you will see fifteen foot high paintings like the Hallucinogenic Torredor, along with many rooms of other major works. The Torreador alone is worth the visit.

Although among the Surrealist Movement's brightest lights in the 1930's he was eschewed by these famous artists who composed the Dada Movement because Dali was a capitalist and they were socialists. As it turns out Dali mastered the art of making money, which contributed to his legacy. On the flip side, his mass production of prints of his work resulted in scandals that in some circles has damaged his name. It may be because his definitions of truth and ethics are as ambiguous as his motivations.

Here is a YouTube film that reveals the character of Dali's mind: self absorbed and over stimulated.