Nothing Mat(t)ers: A Feminist Critique of Postmodernism

EXISTENCE AND DEATH 65
with bravado because he is wearing several masks and he is both the most negative
and the most affirmative of men: a male mother. His contemplative spirit gives birth
to itself. The following passage from Book II, aphorism 72 of The Gay Science
makes this clear: “Pregnancy has made women kinder, more patient, more timid,
more pleased to submit; and just so does spiritual pregnancy produce the character of
the contemplative type, which is closely related to the feminine character: it consists
of male mothers” (1974, p. 129). Nietzsche yearns to give birth to Superman, to
himself, a work of art. He wants to have eternity’s children: “Never yet did I find the
woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love
you, O Eternity!” (1986a, p. 246). But there is danger other than the gaping abyss.
Nietzsche/ Dionysus fears the maenads 18 may tear him to pieces when they find him
mimicking the Mother, being and becoming eternally feminine in Her fetishes. This
fear is revealed in Ecce Homo, in aphorism 5 of “Why I write such excellent books”:
Dare I venture in addition to suggest that I know these little women It is part
of my Dionysian endowment. Who knows perhaps I am the first psychologist
of the eternal-womanly. They all love me—an old story: 19 excepting the
abortive women, the ‘emancipated’ who lack the stuff for children.—Happily
I am not prepared to be torn to pieces: the complete woman tears to pieces
when she loves…. I know these amiable maenads…. Ah, what a dangerous,
creeping, subterranean little beast of prey it is! And so pleasant with it!
(1986b, pp. 75, 76).
These abortive women Nietzsche fears are those who will make him abort his child,
which is himself, the child of eternity. 20 For what are the Dionysian myths he clings
to in particular They are described in Twilight of the Idols in “What I Owe to the
Ancients,” aphorism 4:
What did the Hellene guarantee to himself with these mysteries Eternal life,
the eternal recurrence of life; the future promised and consecrated in the past;
the triumphant Yes to life beyond death and change; true life as collective
continuation of life through procreation, through the mysteries of sexuality. It
was for this reason that the sexual symbol was to the Greeks the symbol
18. Traditionally understood to be the devotees of the God Dionysus. They were believed to tear
human and animal flesh and devour blood and wine in bacchic rituals. See figures in Chapter 6. In
“The Maenad in Early Greek Art,” Sheila McNally traces the changing relationship between the
satyr and the maenad from 580 to 470 B.C. The rapport of harmony, excitement and affection
changed to one of hostility and abduction, she claims. McNally sees this as representing a shift in the
organization of men’s experiences of eras and logos and a transvaluation of reason, nature and
culture. Interestingly, she maintains that the maenads were outside social contracts, and unlike other
women, had no male “protectors”. The maenad had to rescue herself from difficulty and indeed “no
other female in Greek art defends her chastity so fiercely as the maenad” (McNally: 1984, p. 107).
While there are no satyrs in Euripides’ Bacchae, they may appear in Nietzsche as either the
Untermensch, or Übermensch.
19. Here we find Lacan is not original in his use of this taunt. An old story, indeed.
20. Nietzsche’s execrable book of poetry, Dithyrambs of Dionysus (1984) means doubly-born
Dionysus.