73: The Power to Forget

Welcome to all free spirits, wanderers, madmen and godless anti-metaphysicians! It is high time to drink from the waters of Lethe, and forget all that came before in this podcast. Today, we embark on a new phase of our voyage of inquiry, concerning Nietzsche's views on the origins of self-consciousness. We'll consider his remarks on memory and forgetfulness, found in his early essay Use and Abuse of History for Life, in the second essay of Genealogy of Morality, as well as some passages in Human, All Too Human & Wanderer and His Shadow. The expansion of self-consciousness is linked with punishment, revenge, debt, and the demands of civilization upon mankind. Episode art: Gustave Dore - The River of Lethe