the 3 moments in the aesthetics of Nietzsche

let's start with Nietzsche idea of Will (der Wille): a blind force which constantly strives for an unattainable resolution, and so serves merely to perpetuate further meaningless striving.

contrast the will to the world (der Welt). the world is therefore the pain of irreparable lack (what existentialists called "absurd"). the multiple refraction of the world constitute the world of representation and experience.

Next, N contraposes the "Dionysian" and the "Apollonian" principles. Here we get an idea of his aesthetics. the Dionysian is the "primordial unity" of things, a state of "intoxication" in which the deepest and most "horrible truths" of the world are glimpsed.

(side note Kant had called something similar "sublime", i.e.,  he overwhelming, awe-inspiring and yet elevating experience of things which exceed rational apprehension).

opposed to the Dionysian we get the Apollonian, which stands for the illusory, "mere appearance" of things. Apollonian indicates a dream-like state in which all knowledge is knowledge of surfaces. Aesthetically speaking, the Apollonian is the beautiful as intelligible, as conforming to the capacities of the representing intellect.

N's claim is that both Dionysian and Apollonian principles cross-fertilize one another, so that the metaphysical horror of existence is simultaneously revealed and made bearable. The ravages of intoxication are transfigured by dreams, and the sublime is beautified by the veil of appearances. Tragedy (especially Greek tragedy) reconciles both existence and the world.

Nietzsche (part 2)

In Twilight of the Idols N writes: "if we abolished the real world: what world is left? the apparent world perhaps?. . . But no! with the real world we have also abolished the apparent world!".

now the appearance/reality distinction falls squarely within the ordinary, everyday world of actual experience.

so, in N2 the appearance/reality distinction is transposed into the real world of human experience. 

this he calls human too human struggling between lies and truth.

the lie that performs the task of making life bearable. "art is the lie that sanctifies and the will-to-deception then has a good conscience". art beautifies life by interposing a veil of lies between us and truths about the world that we cannot bear (note: Wilde said the same thing contemporaneously in his The Decay of Lying).

for N2 art-as-lie is structurally identical to the Apollonian... in a famous unpublished note of 1888, he writes: "we possess art lest we perish of the truth."

What does all art do? does it not praise? does it not glorify? does it not select? does it not highlight? By doing all this it strengthens or weakens certain valuations. . . Is this no more than an incidental? an accident?Something in which the instinct of the artist has no part whatever? Or isit not rather the prerequisite for the artist’s being an artist at all . . . Is this basic instinct directed towards art, or is it not rather directed towards the meaning of art, which is life?

N2 uses an arsenal of metaphors to make this point: life-affirming valuations and life-denying valuations, superabundance and hunger, ascending life and declining life, strength and weakness, health and sickness.

N2 groups moralities under two heads: "noble morality," is rooted in a triumphant Yes". it's self-affirmation, self-glorification of life." on the other hand we have "slave morality," which from the "outset says No."

now art not morality, is the most fundamental symptom of a psychological economy. why art?

*art comprises "all creation and imposition of forms." the artist is the one that finds new meaning in relation to the whole. art includes every transformative, interpretative activity. its moral domain is "narrower" than the aesthetic. so, morality is simply a special case of the aesthetic.

*morality is a constraint: every morality involves the regulation of behavior through the repression of (at least some) instincts (Freud later uses this as his überich or superego).

At the lower limit, N2 places the noble moralities of human prehistory, in these man/animals we find the smallest degree of repression consistent with self-consciousness.

Art, liberates all these (repressed) forces.

Nietzsche part 3

N3! explores the idea of self-poesis or self-stylization = you're your own work of art. 

to achieve self-poesis one has to be ruthless with oneself, both in recognizing one’s own bad faith (the different ways that we lie to ourselves) and fixing it by reinterpreting it.

N3's motto is truth is ugly but art comes to the rescue.

self-poesis avoids complacency. we need to interpret ourselves, but interpretation is BIASED. we lie to ourselves perpetuating stagnation. uninterpreted life is worse: we remain ignorant. so, the challenge, is to interpret suffering correctly. now N3 explains the difference between christian and pagan self-poesis.

the christian construes himself as an immortal soul while the pagan understands all suffering in relation to the spectator of it. the pagan sees life as a movie he has to play. this is N3's idea of AMOR FATI ("love your fate"). this is close to triff's REALITY IS PERFECT mantra.

so, the christian's version of life is a form of poverty of life. the pagan, by contrast has a nobler approach because it looks at life in the face. why? because suffering is LIFE AFFIRMING. a symptom of abundance.