What is ‘Active’ Forgetting in Nietzsche’s Genealogy II, 1?
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Richard J. Elliott
Abstract
Forgetting is a process Nietzsche discusses in a number of significant passages in On the Genealogy of Morality. The modest aim of this paper is to explain what Nietzsche means by forgetting as being ‘active’. I will primarily discuss his description of forgetting at GM II 1, arguing that Nietzsche wishes to promote a reconception of the role of a particular kind of forgetting in the individual’s psychological life, which is significant for his broader philosophical claims about individual values, interpretation, and memory. I will argue that Nietzsche identifies the active force of forgetting, characterized as a “doorkeeper to consciousness”, as an unconscious or preconscious faculty within human psychology, one that has a structural relation to both conscious and unconscious parts of the mental economy. I will argue that this faculty is active in the sense that it prevents the content of particular experiences from becoming conscious, thereby eventually enabling the rendering of such content psychologically inefficacious. The role of forgetting is an under-treated topic in Anglophone Nietzsche scholarship. Despite this, Nietzsche’s description of this phenomenon as a primitive and integral endowment of human psychology is featured in the prominent position of the very first aphorism of the Second Essay of the Genealogy. In this regard I wish to address the status of this passage as deserving of more attention than it has hitherto been largely given. My reading opposes the notion that active forgetting exclusively amounts to a relic from an antiquated or solely animalistic psychological disposition.
Abstract
Forgetting is a process Nietzsche discusses in a number of significant passages in On the Genealogy of Morality. The modest aim of this paper is to explain what Nietzsche means by forgetting as being ‘active’. I will primarily discuss his description of forgetting at GM II 1, arguing that Nietzsche wishes to promote a reconception of the role of a particular kind of forgetting in the individual’s psychological life, which is significant for his broader philosophical claims about individual values, interpretation, and memory. I will argue that Nietzsche identifies the active force of forgetting, characterized as a “doorkeeper to consciousness”, as an unconscious or preconscious faculty within human psychology, one that has a structural relation to both conscious and unconscious parts of the mental economy. I will argue that this faculty is active in the sense that it prevents the content of particular experiences from becoming conscious, thereby eventually enabling the rendering of such content psychologically inefficacious. The role of forgetting is an under-treated topic in Anglophone Nietzsche scholarship. Despite this, Nietzsche’s description of this phenomenon as a primitive and integral endowment of human psychology is featured in the prominent position of the very first aphorism of the Second Essay of the Genealogy. In this regard I wish to address the status of this passage as deserving of more attention than it has hitherto been largely given. My reading opposes the notion that active forgetting exclusively amounts to a relic from an antiquated or solely animalistic psychological disposition.
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
