The book “transfers Friedrich Nietzsche’s passionate search for meaning into a world that is overwhelmed by ‘content’. Written long before the advent of smartphones, Nietzsche’s aphoristic philosophy advocated a combative mastery of attention, a strict information diet, and a strong connection to the natural world. creative effort as more meaningful than the ‘smooth’ free time our devices often promise.” In an asterisked review Publisher weekly called it “a must-read for anyone overwhelmed by the information age.” Also, it has jokes.
Nobody ever accused Nietzsche of modesty. The man was convinced of his own earth-shattering fate, which must have been hard to bear when only a few hundred people were reading his books. Nonetheless, Nietzsche gave his non-existent readership tips for the right reception of his works – especially his more “aphoristic” books. Nietzsche describes his ideal reader in the preface to breaking Dawn:
A book like this, a problem like this, is in no hurry; Both of us, I’m just as much friends with my book lento [slowness]. I wasn’t a philologist for nothing, perhaps I’m still a philologist, that is, a teacher of slow reading: — after all, I also write slowly. These days it’s not just my habit, it’s also my taste – a malicious taste perhaps? – not to write anything that doesn’t bring despair to every person who is “in a hurry”.
Anyone who tried to read breaking Dawn straight, as if it were a novel, will run headlong into Nietzsche’s “bad taste.” The goal was to create a form that embodies the qualities promoted by the content: concise nuggets that require careful thought, mental experimentation, and far-reaching curiosity about morals and psychology. Of to force Letting his readers proceed slowly if they want to understand the book puts a preventive stop to the binge.
This invitation to read more slowly and with more commitment is not reserved for Nietzsche’s books. In the same foreword, he talks in more detail about European culture, which he believes values speed and productivity above all else. (Sound familiar?) But we must appreciate the ability to “step aside, take your time, become still, slow down,” for careful thinking is “fine, careful work” that “accomplishes nothing by doing it.” not reached lento.”
we do want process information in this way? Nietzsche believes that we are doing this – that we will be charmed by the opportunity to move slowly in an “age of ‘work,’ that is, haste, unseemly and inappropriate haste.” We must instead learn “to read well : ie slowly, profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner thoughts, with open spiritual doors, with tender fingers and eyes”.
In this storytelling, the consumption of information slowly becomes an act of resistance against a dehumanizing technological order. Similar to the Slow Food movement, Nietzsche’s Slow Content also takes on a political and ethical dimension. When it comes to our information diet, it matters how we read, watch and listen.
However, it is not clear that many people believe this today. If “slow reading” is so liberating, then why has every lit major with a Twitter feed posted a thread about how he once wrote great Russian novels such as Anna Karenina but now struggling to make it through lifestyle articles in the newspaper? In a way, the reasons are obvious. We have too many tabs open! Someone text me after every paragraph I read! I’m watching Netflix on my second monitor right now!
And yet, given the unease so many people express about a binge-driven, overflown, hyper-linked culture, one might expect more cultural support for slow reading. There are some – apps that save long articles for later reading, the whole genre of “long reads”, the persistence of New Yorker. But it’s hard to fight those dopamine hits of novelty that make sustained attention so difficult.
This can even be the case in learning centers. English professor Mark Bauerlein is suingin the course of the comment on the Nietzsche passages above, that universities also struggle with slow reading.
Young people are processing more words than ever before, and faster—allegronot lento. To accommodate them, more classrooms and more coursework follow, such as blogs instead of papers, short readings instead of long ones. The unfortunate truth is that reading and writing fast doesn’t make people more flexible and able to read and write slowly when the situation calls for it.
Nietzsche asks us to consciously resist speed and guard our attention and use it purposefully. Just as it feels uncomfortable to stuff food into your stomach, information should be consumed at a certain pace and with a certain amount of care. As with food, there are always exceptions — the quick snack on the run, the hasty meal before the concert — but they’re the exceptions that prove the rule.
Just as Slow Food demands good ingredients, Slow Content demands a certain quality of materials. In the midst of climate change, global pandemics, and a rising tide of authoritarianism, perhaps all we wish for at the end of the week is a silly comedy. Or we could seek cathartic deliverance in online outrage. Or we obsessively consume the news. We might want the informational equivalent of fast food. No matter how good it feels, we need to limit this type of content consumption to keep ourselves sane.
Nietzsche was convinced that human life is about transformation and transcendence, and that our best hope to achieve them is reflection in the face of powerful ideas. That said, much of our reading, listening, and watching should be focused on artists, thinkers, and friends who have something meaningful to say.
Arthur Schopenhauer, to whose philosophy Nietzsche had subscribed as a young man, once wrote: “The art of not reading is a very important one.” Schopenhauer assumed that most popular books were rubbish, on the grounds that “he who writes for fools always finds a large audience”. And so for him “a prerequisite for reading good books is that you don’t read bad ones, because life is short.”
Nietzsche adopts this idea of ”not reading” and turns it into a radical selection principle. He commends people who have an instinctive sense of the matter that will matter in their lives. “Basically what is it that allows us to see who has developed well?” asks Nietzsche.
What doesn’t kill him makes him stronger. He instinctively collects from everything he sees, hears, experiences, his Sum: it is a selection principle, it rejects many things. He is always in his own company, whether dealing with books, people, or landscapes: he honors through Selectfrom admitfrom trusting.
Such people do not indiscriminately welcome content into their world. They are “Principles of Choice” that carefully consider what they allow, for each admission is an act of trust. When we put ourselves in the hands of an author or a director or even an interlocutor and give that person our full attention for many hours, we hope that the process will be worthwhile. We are shaped by what we consume, making our information inputs not only matters of aesthetic taste, but also matters of morality and ethics.
Few deserve such trust. In his early career, Nietzsche names only eight: Epicurus, Montaigne, Goethe, Spinoza, Plato, Rousseau, Pascal and Schopenhauer. Only from them, he says, “will I accept judgment.” He has considered them important enough that they will guide all his habits of thought. “In everything I say, conclude, or think for myself and others, I keep my eyes fixed on these eight and see their eyes locked on mine,” he writes.
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