Untimely Meditations 117figure. To overpower or be overpowered—that is the question. There is
an agonistic ontological relationship here. The extremely active will to
configure dares to enter into a bet with the life force of oblivious over-
powering. This will to configure is an artistic one, which serves a will to
live that is enhanced beyond unconscious urges. For this reason,
Nietzsche found it appropriate to call Heraclitus an "aesthetic man who
has learned from artists and the genesis of artworks how... necessity
and playfulness as well as opposition and harmony must pair to create a
work of art" (1,831; PTA § 7).
The artistic will to configure is also concerned with capturing the
whole in a single image. And what is the function of this image—this
Heraclitean image of the world—if not to compress the entire course
of time into a moment? History is eradicated in the experience that
allows for this sort of compression into an image, and we realize that it
is unnecessary to have goals because we are already at the goal.
After taking issue with materialism, Nietzsche quarreled with a sec-
ond aspect of the spirit of his era and waged a battle against the pre-
vailing, overpowering emphasis on history. For him, historidsm was also
a consequence of the Socratic-Alexandrine culture of knowledge, which
had taken a particular turn in Germany during the period of unification.
Historidsm looked back into history to admire how nicely humanity had
progressed. At the same time, people wanted to compensate for the
great uncertainty surrounding bourgeois existence. They were not alto-
gether sure who they were and what they wanted. This historidsm was
expressed as pleasure in the epigonal and inauthentic. The spirit of "as
if" was triumphing.
"Impressive" was defined as something that resembled something
else. Every material used was intended to pretend to more than it was. It
was the era of fake materials. Marble was painted wood, glistening
alabaster was plaster of Paris. New things had to look old. Greek
columns graced the entrance to the stock exchange, factory grounds
resembled a medieval castle, and ruins were newly constructed.
Historical associations were all the rage. Courthouses resembled the