The Gay Science,by Friedrich Nietzsche

1) Nietzsche could have written The Gay Science differently. What justifies the style of composition he chose? More importantly, is his style of writing effective? What relation do you see between the style of his writing and the content of thought it expresses?

Nietzsche's style of writing was a deliberate stylistic choice meant to hide the meaning of his work and philosophy from those who would not be able to understand it, and through there misunderstanding would abuse it. This writing style was also meant to help support and give meaning to Nietzsche's arguments on the nature of language and how language is, at its root a metaphor describing an object that is disconnected from us. Nietzsche's work broke down language to its metaphorical roots and explored the nature of how our language is disconnected from the objective reality around us. Nietzsche uses the metaphorical roots of our language to show that words and language our fundamentally disconnected because of the subjective nature of language. Nietzsche shows these metaphorical roots by showing how simple words and phrases that we use in our everyday life are really disconnected or at least removed by the barrier of language. Language is a serious of metaphor's all describing how an object subjectively appears to the individual. No language can describe what it is like to "be" that object, nor properly describe what it is that makes the object what it is. All language can do is provide a vehicle through which man can communicate what he is subjectively experiencing and relate it via a metaphor to another individual who will only get a idea of what is being described rather than an actual concrete description.

2) In sections 124, 343, and 377, Nietzsche claims that, following the death of God, human beings find themselves "in the horizon of the infinite," on the "open sea," and "homeless." What are the consequences of the death of God? With reference to section 347, discuss the ambiguity of this new found freedom. How might it terrify some people and empower others?

The consequences for the death of god are far reaching and and many in Nietzsche's work. Christianity sparked the death of God as most of us know him through the actions of Martin Luther. Luther's desire to give the common man the ability to understand and read the bible brought a end to the churches monopoly on morality and brought the "divine" to the common man making the common man "divine".