Nietzsche und das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Eine kritische Relektüre der Zweiten Unzeitgemässen Betrachtung
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Aleida Assmann
Abstract
The thesis of this contribution is that the new media have by no means made the idea of culture as memory obsolete, but instead have only spurred it on. Flickering screens and digital numerical codes have created in dialectical response a new feeling for the materiality of the data carriers, electronic volatility has created a new sense of the risk of losing long-term stability, and the acceleration of the information flow has created a new awareness for the persistence of messages. Under these conditions, the institutions of storage memory [Speichergedächtnis] - museums, archive and libraries - take on an entirely new meaning. Whereas Nietzsche’s concern at the end of the 19th century was functional memory [Funktionsgedächtnis], ours at the beginning of the 21st century is storage memory [Speichergedächtnis]. Human memory always reconstructs the past, as cognitive scientists assure us, according to the needs of the present; it is eager to transform the odd into the functional, the diachronic into the synchronic. However, different standards apply to cultural memory. Today we no longer live only in the age of the technical reproducibility of the artwork, which, according to Walter Benjamin, endangers the aura of the original, but also in the age of universal malleability of all data, which transcends the physicality and materiality of memory. No wonder that storage memory in the year 2000 is no longer what it was for Nietzsche a little more than a hundred years ago: a threat and opponent of memory. In the digital age, it has become above all a guarantor and a prerequisite for memory.
Abstract
The thesis of this contribution is that the new media have by no means made the idea of culture as memory obsolete, but instead have only spurred it on. Flickering screens and digital numerical codes have created in dialectical response a new feeling for the materiality of the data carriers, electronic volatility has created a new sense of the risk of losing long-term stability, and the acceleration of the information flow has created a new awareness for the persistence of messages. Under these conditions, the institutions of storage memory [Speichergedächtnis] - museums, archive and libraries - take on an entirely new meaning. Whereas Nietzsche’s concern at the end of the 19th century was functional memory [Funktionsgedächtnis], ours at the beginning of the 21st century is storage memory [Speichergedächtnis]. Human memory always reconstructs the past, as cognitive scientists assure us, according to the needs of the present; it is eager to transform the odd into the functional, the diachronic into the synchronic. However, different standards apply to cultural memory. Today we no longer live only in the age of the technical reproducibility of the artwork, which, according to Walter Benjamin, endangers the aura of the original, but also in the age of universal malleability of all data, which transcends the physicality and materiality of memory. No wonder that storage memory in the year 2000 is no longer what it was for Nietzsche a little more than a hundred years ago: a threat and opponent of memory. In the digital age, it has become above all a guarantor and a prerequisite for memory.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- List of Abbreviations / Siglenverzeichnis XIII
- Introduction 1
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Section I: History
- Critical History and Genealogy 17
- Typologies of Histories 37
- Origins and Genealogies 57
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Section II: Memory and Forgetting
- Nietzsche und das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Eine kritische Relektüre der Zweiten Unzeitgemässen Betrachtung 79
- „Göttlich ist des Vergessens Kunst“. Nietzsches Poetik des Gedächtnisses 95
- What is ‘Active’ Forgetting in Nietzsche’s Genealogy II, 1? 113
- Eternal Return and Memory 129
- Memory, History and the Paternal Shadow: Nietzsche’s Autobiographical Survival 139
- Das Trauma des Werdens – Nietzsche gegen die Identität 159
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Section III: The Person and Society
- Gedächtnis und Leiblichkeit: Herkunft, Gefahr und Aktualität ihres Zusammenhangs 177
- History and Memory in Civilization- Building Processes: A Reading of Der Antichrist, 56–58 193
- Histories of Violence: Nietzsche on Cruelty and Normative Order 209
- Temporalities of the Feeling of Power 239
- „Versprechen können“ oder „versprechen dürfen“?: Anmerkungen über die ersten drei Abschnitte in der zweiten Abhandlung von Nietzsches Zur Genealogie der Moral 253
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Section IV: Context and Reception
- Die Literaturgeschichte als „künstlerische Produktion“. Der Schopenhauersche Begriff der Geschichte und die nachgelassenen Fragmente Nietzsches aus der Zeit 1867/1868 265
- Zwischen Geschichte und Gedächtnis: Aby Warburg, Jacob Burckhardt und Friedrich Nietzsche 279
- Vordenker kollektiver identitätsbildender Gedächtniskonstruktionen? Eine kritische Sichtung der Nietzsche-Rezeption Aleida und Jan Assmanns 301
- Index 323
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements VII
- Contents IX
- List of Abbreviations / Siglenverzeichnis XIII
- Introduction 1
-
Section I: History
- Critical History and Genealogy 17
- Typologies of Histories 37
- Origins and Genealogies 57
-
Section II: Memory and Forgetting
- Nietzsche und das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Eine kritische Relektüre der Zweiten Unzeitgemässen Betrachtung 79
- „Göttlich ist des Vergessens Kunst“. Nietzsches Poetik des Gedächtnisses 95
- What is ‘Active’ Forgetting in Nietzsche’s Genealogy II, 1? 113
- Eternal Return and Memory 129
- Memory, History and the Paternal Shadow: Nietzsche’s Autobiographical Survival 139
- Das Trauma des Werdens – Nietzsche gegen die Identität 159
-
Section III: The Person and Society
- Gedächtnis und Leiblichkeit: Herkunft, Gefahr und Aktualität ihres Zusammenhangs 177
- History and Memory in Civilization- Building Processes: A Reading of Der Antichrist, 56–58 193
- Histories of Violence: Nietzsche on Cruelty and Normative Order 209
- Temporalities of the Feeling of Power 239
- „Versprechen können“ oder „versprechen dürfen“?: Anmerkungen über die ersten drei Abschnitte in der zweiten Abhandlung von Nietzsches Zur Genealogie der Moral 253
-
Section IV: Context and Reception
- Die Literaturgeschichte als „künstlerische Produktion“. Der Schopenhauersche Begriff der Geschichte und die nachgelassenen Fragmente Nietzsches aus der Zeit 1867/1868 265
- Zwischen Geschichte und Gedächtnis: Aby Warburg, Jacob Burckhardt und Friedrich Nietzsche 279
- Vordenker kollektiver identitätsbildender Gedächtniskonstruktionen? Eine kritische Sichtung der Nietzsche-Rezeption Aleida und Jan Assmanns 301
- Index 323
