Monday, March 2, 2015

Nietzsche and McLuhan

Friedrich Nietzsche
I found this presentation to be much harder to make than all of the previous similar presentations I have done for Photography classes. Since it was not about an artist, I could not use art to illustrate my points. I had to draw my thesis and arguments from somewhat dense philosophical ideas, which I often have a hard time with. I am not entirely sure why I chose to do my presentation on Nietzsche. I guess I have always found him interesting, though I have never looked too closely at any of his work. If nothing else, this presentation was a good excuse to do just that. (And I found that I still like Nietzsche and his ideas.)
I did not know that Nietzsche had such strong opinions about art and that he even saw art as a substitute for “the God who made a clock-like universe, wound it, and withdrew,” who is now dead (146).
I think that if Nietzsche were around today, he would be mostly pleased with how far we have advanced our society and that we continue to seek out new ways to advance it.

4 comments:

  1. I agree that this project was harder to draw a thesis from. I like the fact that you weren't sure why you chose to present on Nietzsche but still connected with his work. Also, the "clock-wise universe, would it, and withdrew" is a really cool quote.

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  2. I really liked your presentation and the ideas in McLuhan and Nietzsche's writings about the past influencing the present but also the necessity of breaking away from the past. I think that's one of these encompassing concepts in TMITM: using the past to try to make sense of the present and then moving on from it.

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  3. I've never really known much about Nietzsche so I never knew what the big deal was about him, but the ideas that you discussed really appealed to me, on a surprisingly personal level. I always figured his ideas were much more aggressive or shocking, and maybe they are! But the idea that God no longer exists (or never did) and that art can fill the same place in our lives is like... pretty much everything I already believe! I guess I should read some Nietzsche then, huh?

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  4. I've never really known much about Nietzsche so I never knew what the big deal was about him, but the ideas that you discussed really appealed to me, on a surprisingly personal level. I always figured his ideas were much more aggressive or shocking, and maybe they are! But the idea that God no longer exists (or never did) and that art can fill the same place in our lives is like... pretty much everything I already believe! I guess I should read some Nietzsche then, huh?

    ReplyDelete

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