From Homo Natura to Homo Historia: Nietzsche and Musil on Writing

• In Event: Epistolary Politics

Abstract

As intimations of what subsequent generations would eventually discover in the writings of Deleuze and Foucault, Nietzsche and Musil had already grasped the significance of postmodern historicity as the radical departure from a life based on either instinct or tradition—thus affirming the complex unity of Homo natura and Homo historia in the continual addition of an ‘inexpressible multiplicity’ of selves to the subjectivity bequeathed from the past. As we read in their most famous texts as well as their letters, notebooks, and diaries, Nietzsche and Musil consequently embarked on new paths of subjectification through their critical appropriation and radicalization of the aphoristic and essayistic styles, in turn generating a veritable ‘politics of style.’ Moreover, in the invention of these new forms of writing and expression, they offer us early examples of what Foucault would later term the ‘experience-book,’ a book that serves as an active participant in a process of becoming, and what Deleuze would ultimately characterize as the function of the ‘writer,’ the ‘seer and hearer’ who teaches us the ‘becoming-other of language.’ In order to counter the reactionary tendencies of their times, Nietzsche and Musil therefore sought to overcome the snares and pitfalls of power (pouvoir)/knowledge (savoir) through the exploration of the active potencies and possibilities of subjectification in the ever-immanent ‘outside of language.’

Author

• Brook Blair, University of Northern Colorado