The Existential Conception of Culture

Abstract

Chapter 1 considers the idea of culture, as described in The Birth of Tragedy and beyond, where it is understood in terms of its existential functional role. A culture, in this sense, is a worldview seeking to provide people with a form of spiritual sustenance. The most important unifying thread in Nietzsche’s discussion is that this sort of culture serves as a way for human beings to cope with existence. Although the terms in which Nietzsche thinks about these cultures change, basically the same picture continues into his later work. What these various forms of culture (Apolline, Dionysiac, tragic, Socratic) did for the ancient Greeks, he sees Christianity and its offshoots as doing for most people in the Western world. It provides them with a series of reassuring narratives and ways of viewing things that lend meaning and intelligibility to their lives.