140 NietzscheIn his enthusiasm for myth (and for Wagner), Nietzsche discovered
the will to purposeful, mythical, and aesthetic self-enchantment In The
Birth of Tragedy, he had written: "Only a horizon encircled with myths
can mark off a cultural movement as a discrete unit" (1,145; BT% 23).
But what conditions are required for myths to develop this degree of
power? Surely, they can do so only if they are considered to have truth
value. If an epoch has thought beyond the realm of myths, and knowl-
edge is amassed that is no longer compatible with myths, a breach has
occurred, which fundamentally alters a society's relationship to myths.
Their truth value dwindles and is perhaps replaced by aesthetic value.
However, myths considered from an aesthetic point of view cannot
maintain the impact required to consolidate a "cultural movement" into
a state of unity. That is possible only for intellectual constructs that go
beyond aesthetic realism and lay claim to the entire sphere of knowl-
edge, as was the case for Christianity in its prime, when it still comprised
art, knowledge, and morality. The same applies to ancient Greece when
it was still under the sway of myth. Nietzsche grew aware that these eras
of the past could be conjured up in the mind, but their renaissance could
be enacted only at the cost of self-deception. A modern mythical con-
sciousness is hollow; it represents systematized insincerity. Wagner had
the gods die onstage—a great achievement, in Nietzsche's view. But
Wagner clung to the will to enchantment by means of myth. Nietzsche
concurred with him until he realized that once the gods have died, only
the aesthetic event remains. Aesthetics can be decked out in myth, but
not transformed into a religious event.
Making a religion of art was not the answer. Nietzsche began to rec-
ognize this clearly even before the shock of Bayreuth in 1876, when he
experienced firsthand how a hallowed art event could deteriorate into
banality. He now contested the central proposition of the entire Wagner
project. In an essay called "On State and Religion," Wagner had claimed
that when reality turns distressing, it is the power of the work of art "to
put deliberate madness in the place of reality." Wagner went on to say
that a person enchanted by art is so deeply engrossed in the game of art