our human lives, while at the same time recognizing its ultimate meaninglessness to the individual, to many people seems like a prescription for insanity. What we, as human beings, must have to live a fulfilled human life is an image of eternal meaning. This we can derive only from religion, which provides for us, as it always has, a transcendent sense of order, something which answers to our most essential human nature far more deeply than either the Enlightenment faith in scientific rationality or Nietzsche's call to a life of constant metaphorical selfdefinition. A prominent spokespersons for this reaction to Nietzsche is George Grant--the last author we shall be considering in our curriculum (and the author of an interesting critique of Nietzsche: Time as History, the transcript of a series of lectures on the CBC). To read the modern debates over literary interpretation, theory, human rights issues, education curriculums, feminist issues, ethnic rights, communitarian politics, or a host of other similar issues is to come repeatedly across the clash of these different positions (and others). To use the analogy I started with, activities on the playing fields are going on more energetically than ever. And right in the middle of most of these debates and generously scattered throughout the footnotes and bibliographies, Nietzsche's writings are alive and well. To that extent, his ideas are still something to be reckoned with. He may have started by shouting over the PA system in a way no one bothered to attend to; now on many playing fields, the participants and fans are considering and reacting to his analysis of their activities. So Nietzsche today is, probably more than ever before in this century, right in the centre of some of the most vital debates over cultural questions.
our human lives, while at the same time recognizing its ultimate meaninglessness to the individual, to many people seems like a prescription for insanity. What we, as human beings, must have to live a fulfilled human life is an image of eternal meaning. This we can derive only from religion, which provides for us, as it always has, a transcendent sense of order, something which answers to our most essential human nature far more deeply than either the Enlightenment faith in scientific rationality or Nietzsche's call to a life of constant metaphorical selfdefinition. A prominent spokespersons for this reaction to Nietzsche is George Grant--the last author we shall be considering in our curriculum (and the author of an interesting critique of Nietzsche: Time as History, the transcript of a series of lectures on the CBC). To read the modern debates over literary interpretation, theory, human rights issues, education curriculums, feminist issues, ethnic rights, communitarian politics, or a host of other similar issues is to come repeatedly across the clash of these different positions (and others). To use the analogy I started with, activities on the playing fields are going on more energetically than ever. And right in the middle of most of these debates and generously scattered throughout the footnotes and bibliographies, Nietzsche's writings are alive and well. To that extent, his ideas are still something to be reckoned with. He may have started by shouting over the PA system in a way no one bothered to attend to; now on many playing fields, the participants and fans are considering and reacting to his analysis of their activities. So Nietzsche today is, probably more than ever before in this century, right in the centre of some of the most vital debates over cultural questions.
Nietzsche%20K%20-%20DDI%202015%20SWS.docx