Nietzsche Contra Nature
"In our days, characterology is considered a science, although it only becomes fertile through elements that are beyond knowledge and bring it closer to the arts. Character interpretation presupposes a kind of musicality. There must be a fluidity between the critic and the person being judged, including congeniality. This limits the scope of applied psychology, which can be regarded as one of the sub-disciplines of characterology. The assessment reflects the assessor. The character of the boss can be read from the appraisal of his subordinates."
With the question of characterology, rather than physiognomy, we get to the heart of perception, the extent of what one sees when he begins to judge another man. This is the conflict of spirit and the instincts, of strength over the will and the great battle of fate. Whether one sees only the base instincts or the entire figure of man is also how the judge of character sees himself being judged, equal to his subject as they both stand before greater laws. Military decisions make such a distinction clear, just as in crisis the outline of a man takes on the reflections of a dawning light.
With Nietzsche we already see a weakening, a will which cannot see its own Christian character, as the base instincts take over. This was the very conflict with fate that Machiavelli spoke of, the relation to the figure of Chiron, one which must be aware of great dangers amidst a softening of the character. Nietzsche's Dionysus is really a dead Chiron, one without salvation, trampled by the centaurs. This is where we see him as blind before character, even his own—his inability to sense any of the true qualities of Socrates, the Stoics, Wagner, the Greek Tyrants, the heroes. He saw only the death of the heroic, reformed as historicised time within the will, hence his elevation of tragedy into a Christian aesthetic.
With nihilist conservatism we see an even further weakening, even an embrace of all the character elements of the enemy. This is, of course, necessary for modern law to function, each man is paired up, conjoined to his other, a centaur figure. It matters little which part is left- or right-wing, such questions are a digression against character, where physiognomy and the mind are equal and determined by how they are perceived—from such a perspective one may only see half of the character of the other, what is necessary to himself and the process of conjoined movement which must reconcile perfectly in its violence.
Nietzsche's method, and the whole of the modern conception with it, is entirely opposed to Xenophon's idea of the Great King as Chiron - the ignoble returned to primordial power. Machiavelli leaves us with a portal at least, while Nietzsche condemns the myth to biological pantheism. Thieving a noble symbol of the master and slave he descends into the bestial but destroys it, leaving nothing but a torso tearing at the ground, crawling away from its lesser half.
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