Stop using history as escape from life

They say: Those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it. Nietzsche has a fascinating counter-argument: those who know too much history end up disillusioned, demoralized, and disempowered. Dig into an eccentric philosopher's surprising arguments against history👇

Nietzsche wrote that history that gives us instruction "without invigoration" and knowledge unconnected from "action" is a "costly superfluity" that deserves to be hated. Nietzsche: "We still lack even the things we need and the superfluous is the enemy of the necessary."

Nietzsche wrote that the typical reader of history is an "idler in the garden of knowledge." But Nietzsche's relationship with history is different: "We need history for the sake of life and action, not so as to turn comfortably away from life and action."

Nietzsche: "We want to serve history only to the extent that history serves life." What is the point of ingesting knowledge if life itself becomes "stunted and degenerate" in the process? The study of history is valuable to the extent it enhances the student's power and clarity.

Nietzsche's beautiful description of human memory: "A leaf flutters from the scroll of time, floats away - and suddenly floats back again and falls into the man's lap." Other animals have no history - for them "every moment really dies" while for us they come back "as a ghost."

The past can be a great weight. The past can push a man "down' or bend him "sideways." Other animals have "nothing of the past to shake off" - and they operate in the "blissful blindness between the hedges of past and future."

Happiness as Forgetfulness? Is happiness nothing but the "ability to forget?" True presence seems to be a precondition for happiness. This is why children experience the joy of abandon in a way that adults typically can't. Another way an overdeveloped historical sense hurts.

History paralyses you. History says: build a company and it'll fall. Write a book and people'll forget. Create a new empire and it'll decline. History is a story of endings. It freezes us into inaction - a man with total historical awareness can't "dare" raise a "finger."

Forgetting the past is as necessary to human health as forgetting consciousness during sleep. Nietzsche: "Forgetting is essential to action of any kind, just as not only light but darkness too is essential for the life of everything organic." And cultures are organic entities.

Conclusion. Nietzschean position on the past: the past is a country CONQUERED - you can take whatever you want, burn whatever you want. It's laws and rights are backed up by no power. Time itself has forsaken the past. LOOT whatever is valuable and set the rest to fire. Ride on.