Wizja kultury w Narodzinach tragedii Nietzschego .......... 435

THE UNDERSTANDING OF CULTURE IN THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY BY NIETZSCHE

Culture is, for Nietzsche, a specific tool for dealing with reality. This is because reality “demands” justification, without which it would be unbearable for us; it requires action that is essentialy culture-forming. Particular types of culture represent different strategies for dealing with reality, specific to different types of men. Each of them evaluates and interprets reality according to his own experience. Doing this, he, at the same time, assesses and interprets his own existence. For only when we somehow comprehend the whole can we define our own place within it and our relationships with what surrounds us, as well as our attitude towards ourselves. To Nietzsche it is obvious that this fundamental interpretation has a normative dimension. Not only does it say who we are, but it also obliges us to strive for who we should be, so that our existence can be justified. This moral dimension of culture, present in all its forms, is particularly important to Nietzsche. In this text I try to show this dimension in the context of the reflection on culture in the Birth of the Tragedy and to emphasize its importance to Nietzsche’s later works. For he thinks that one of the most important manifestations of the crisis of modern culture is our failure to see how important it is. And one of the most important reasons for this failure is our unawareness of how closely it depends on metaphysical insight into the whole of existence.