Richibi’s Weblog

   “The Garden of Earthly Delights“ (1510 – 1515) 

          Hieronymus Bosch

               ____________

if I’ve been spending a lot of time on
Beethoven, it’s that, apart from 
besides him Napoleon, no one else 
dominates in the public imagination 
the early 19th Century, there is no 
one else of such comparable 
importance 

let me also point out that when 
Nietzsche identified his model for  
the Übermensch, Superman, it was  
not the French General, the French 
Emperor, however formidable, 
however illustrious, he named, but 
Beethoven 

Nietzsche had already understood 
that in the future, a future where the
idea of God had been put into question,
an issue which had begun irreversibly 
with the splintering of the Catholic 
supremacy, when the several 
Protestantisms, Lutheran, Calvinist, 
Anglican then, presented differing 
opinions of each their vehemently
defended deity, the eventual 
resolution would be inescapably up 
for metaphysical grabs, which set 
philosophers, scientists, poets in 
search of answers, which by 
definition must be as varied as 
there are voices

the outcome was the eventual 
declaration of human rights before
the court of international opinion 
as the ruling moral consideration
above the demands of any one 
faith

Nietzsche‘s pronouncement was that
a powerful opinion could therefore 
sway very populations towards its 
vision, however ultimately 
sometimes dire, Nietzsche was 
therefore blamed for predicting, 
for instance, Hitler, as though 
Nietzsche were himself responsible, 
rather than prescient 

one of his books, indeed, entitled 
“Beyond Good and Evil“, illustrates
the breakdown of the traditional, 
which is to say Christian, moral
order, powerful people will take us 
where they want to, for better or 
for worse, he prophesied

therefore, note, the very present

but there is also Beethoven, the 
incandescent prophet, Charles 
Darwin, the biologist, who 
changed the way we understand 
ourselves, Sigmund Freud, who 
pushed that understanding even 
further, Albert Einstein, who gave 
us an alternate picture of the 
universe, John Lennon, who 
called upon us all to “Imagine“, 
Princess Diana, who demonstrated 
what it was to be good in a world 
that was losing its compass, each 
shaping by force of personality 
our present age, their future
 
all was not, by their examples, 
lost, in other words, some of our 
leaders would be benevolent, 
verily even inspiring, despite the 
prevalence in their midst, the 
existential threat of, nefarious, 
indeed ruthless, and, too often, 
appalling, despots, a category 
too long to even begin to list

here’s, however, Beethoven doing 
again his stuff to inform the tenor
of his time, his 15th String Quartet, 
another forceful and foundational 
step towards the world that lay,
before him, ahead, our world, for 
better or for worse

R ! chard