Of the Horse, We Know Nothing (The Turin Horse)

Commissioned by Patrick DeVita-Dillon

I’ve never read a single thing by Nietzsche. Sure, I’ve read the famous quotes by him. “God is Dead.” “Behold I teach the Superman.” “OH GOD, WHY ARE YOU HURTING THIS MAGESTIC CREATURE???” (It’s the cause of the final quote that The Turin Horse exists. It’s a good movie, perhaps even a great one. It’s stark black and white add to the bleak, hopeless world it’s set in, the framing is what you’d expect from someone with two installations at St. John’s Cathedral: fucking beautiful. And it knows just how long to linger to make the scenes hit just right. But it’s a neorealist film about the misery of poverty, so it’s very hard to write about unless it’s either three sentences long or five hundred pages long.) But reading quotes by a famous author is not the same thing as reading their books.

I’m surprised I never considered writing about the German philosopher for any part of the book One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy (of which this essay was commissioned because of). I think it’s because I ultimately decided to write about the works of EM Cioran instead. That’s what happens when you write a book about Mister Miracle killing himself and you find a book about the benefits of Suicide called The New Gods. (No, I didn’t know about his fascist phase until… 13 days before I wrote this essay [so a good couple of months after I wrote the chapter of One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy that focused on his work]. In my defense, I was so focused on the singular work that I didn’t look into his other texts as deeply. Also, at the time he wrote that work, he apparently moved away from fascism.)

Perhaps the best work the compares to Nietzsche is that of The Princess Bride. Both are things I’m aware existed and have at times crossed paths with. But not until it was past the sell by date did I actively engage with them (though looking back, The Princess Bride was quite delightful). Nietzsche is in many ways the gateway drug of philosophy. His work is quite good, and indeed insightful. But the full effect is lost when you come at him after reading Ligotti or Sandifer or Sugar among all the other authors and creators inspired by him (be it in defense or opposition of). It’s been almost 150 years. All popular authors inevitably get examined, reevaluated, and recontextualized heavily in that time. It’s hard to read them with naked eyes.

Sure, I can respect Nietzsche, for as much as one can respect a major influence on the Nazis (though allegedly an inadvertent one). But I don’t think I’m ever going to have the eureka moment a lot of college freshmen have when reading Beyond Good and Evil or Twilight of the Gods for the first time. There’s an analogy that perhaps best sums up what I mean. (I think I heard it in a podcast, though I forget which one.) A guy who grew up on Spaceballs watches Star Wars for the first time. He doesn’t like the film because “It’s just Spaceballs, but without the jokes.” I feel if I were to approach Nietzsche, it would come across as lacking an essential element that’s key to the parodies and reactions.

Then again, maybe I should read Nietzsche before I run my mouth about him.