Definitions and Interpretations of Nihilism

The vagueness inherent in nihilism's nonspecificity presents the first obstacle to assessing its relevance to Stirner's thought. Although the word has, since its invention, been in increasingly common usage, there is a remarkable amount of confusion about what nihilism actually means, and only a few of Stirner's accusers on the subject make their definitions clear. Instead, many of them seem to treat its meaning as a given, which only serves to deepen the confusion and misunderstanding. Indeed, far from leading to a reduction in occurrence, the general uncertainty around the interpretation of nihilism has resulted in its liberal and, at times, almost indiscriminate use, thus increasing both the number of possible definitions and their ambiguity. Unless this complex web of meanings is untangled, it is impossible to determine whether Stirner can reasonably be called a nihilist, a task which is made no easier by the fact that standard textbooks on nihilism fail to reach a consensus view on the question of the term's definition. In the absence of clarity, both about nihilism generally and about how it applies to Stirner, it is imperative that this study provide a comprehensive, if relatively brief, account of the history of nihilism, against which Stirner's thought can be measured.

The next two chapters will therefore be concerned with the etymology of nihilism, examining its various definitions, and tracing its development as a concept over time. The focus will be on two central and closely connected themes around which the discussion about Stirner and nihilism often revolves, namely, the relationship between atheism and nothingness on the one hand, and Nietzsche's conception of nihilism on the other. The current chapter will commence with an overview of the interpretations and connotations of nihilism and proceed to an assessment of the evolution of the concept of nihilism from its origins as a polemical term used for the excoriation of irreligion, up until Nietzsche's assimilation of the word into his philosophical project. The following chapter will then concentrate on the formation and development of Nietzschean nihilism and examine the possibility that Stirner's ideas contributed to its genesis. Armed with this knowledge, it will be possible in the following chapters to gain an insight into the different historical perspectives of Stirner's accusers and to understand the implications, and judge the veracity, of their accusations.

Now, however, when the messenger returned, and Duke Ernst had heard the verdict, the popular leader declared: “Now we are in God's hands, and we ask Him to grant us that we take our revenge on the faithless wretch whose fault it is that I have to endure all this pain and suffering. I have never posed any threat of damage to the state. I promise you that the count will pay for lies and slander that he has used to alienate me from my dearly loved emperor, whom I have always honored with complete loyalty, and his sorrows were always my sorrows, too.” The confident warrior went on: “I am forced now to think of attack. I shall be happy if I can redeem myself with honor. God knows the truth, that I did not throw away the favor of the emperor by some foolish action. He has now given free rein to his anger with me, but he should hear and be well aware, whether he likes it or not, that I propose to remain for the time being here in his empire with him, unless prevented by some complete disaster, sickness, poverty, or death—things like that can always happen. I have plenty of valiant fighters who will not let me be driven out while there is breath in their bodies, so that I can put up a resistance. There is also no question,” continued the brave warrior, “that he might take away the lands that have come down to me by right of birth. He has no feudal justification in that respect.”

The emperor was holding court at Speyer in the palatinate. When the duke was told of this, he thought: “I have to go there regardless of any danger to myself. I must cross the Rhine and get to my enemies, the ones who have done me so much harm.” And so he selected two of his vassals, men in whose bravery he was completely confident, and rode off with them. When they had crossed the Rhine, he explained to his two companions what he had in mind and wanted to do.

This volume contains six essays arranged chronologically. As is often the case in volumes of Medieval Clothing and Textiles, a range of sources are discussed: literary and documentary material; clothing and material remains; frescoes, panel paintings, and images in manuscripts. Contents extend from the twelfth century to the sixteenth and geographically from southern Europe to Scotland and Norway.

The opening essay, by Sean Manning, investigates the use of quilted and linen armour. By the year 1160, warriors in Catholic Europe often wore quilted coats over, under, or instead of iron armour. Texts from the twelfth century onwards record this practice, but archaeological and iconographic evidence is very limited before the thirteenth century. In addition, texts provide information that paintings, sculptures, and surviving garments cannot, such as cost, the equipment of low-status soldiers, and what was hidden under visible outer layers. However, references to soldiers wearing quilted coats appear in a wide variety of texts in different languages with different vocabulary. This article, which is the first in a planned series, provides the most important references to these garments across Western Europe in both their original language and in translation. Looking at texts in Latin, the Romance languages, the Germanic languages, and Old Irish suggests that the different terms for quilted coats were more or less interchangeable in this period. By the late twelfth century, soldiers’ quilted coats were part of a cultural package with items like covertures (trappers for horses), cuiries (leather defenses for the chest), and iron hats. The article also raises the question of why the earliest evidence comes from the British Isles and northern France, when the technology may have been imported from the cotton-growing regions around the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Michael Peter, in the second essay of the volume, moves from linen to silk and from literary to material sources, looking at serial production in late medieval silks. Medieval silk weaving was characterised by the different interests of producers and consumers. The buyers’ needs for exclusivity and individual self-representation were contrasted on the side of the manufacturers by the mechanisms of the market and the rules of serial production, which aimed to economise and standardise the weaving processes as much as possible. Opportunities to modify patterns and motifs to fit individual preferences were extremely limited.

INTRODUCTION

By the sumnler of 1917, Britain was beginning to run short of manpower. Sustaining for the first time a mass conscript army of millions, subject to enormous casualties, Britain was also building up incomparably the world’s greatest air force and at the same time functioning as the principal arsenal, coal supplier and industrial base of the Entente. In these circumstances, the Royal Navy was finding it difficult to man new ships, by this time largely light cruisers and flotilla craft. It was proposed that several pre-dreadnoughts of the Channel Fleet should be paid off and replaced by four of the older dreadnoughts from the Grand Fleet, themselves to be superseded by four American battleships [244], The Navy Department declined the request on several grounds. American admirals (Sims being the notable exception) remained faithful to the rigid Mahanite ‘fetish’ of battlefleet concentration and were resolved not to dribble it away in penny packets. They feared that the United States might have to meet an undiminished German fleet alone should the shaky Entente collapse. Even if this were not the case, the untrustworthy Japanese might take advantage of the scattering of American naval power to switch sides and stab the United States in the back. The US Navy had a paranoid fear of such a strike but even more so of a two-ocean conflict with both Germany and Japan. Furthermore, the British had given little indication of the use to which they intended to put the American dreadnoughts and certainly nothing of an offensive nature. The US Navy was equally short of trained personnel and four battleships with full war complements would drain the pool still further. Daniels believed the British supply system would be put under unacceptable pressure by their demands. In any case, he observed to Wilson, the British already enjoyed a capital ship superiority over the Germans of 2.5:1 and therefore required no reinforcement. Sims, exasperated, pointed out that, since the United States was fighting alongside the United Kingdom, the Grand Fleet represented the concentrated battlefleet and thus America was at liberty to strengthen it without rejecting Mahan’s doctrine.

Washington remained adamant in its refusal until Benson himself visited the war zone and was impressed with the awesome might of the Grand Fleet and the warmth of his reception.

I met one of the most curious people there [at the Trélats] that I have ever met in my life: Dr. Étienne-Jules Marey, who was the first inventor of a [chrono]photographic gun capable of shooting ninety frames per minute, an invention that would later lead to the development of cinematography. Marey had given lectures at the Sorbonne in the evenings to study all the passing movements that the eye was unable to grasp.

He had developed a belt with a recorder that when placed around a singer's chest allowed him to reproduce a more or less straight line on a wall or a projection screen. If the singer did not sustain the sound exactly, the line became quite erratic instead of being horizontal. Without any [vocal] embellishments or waves, the line was absolutely straight. He could even record all the reactions of the organs of a running horse. He could take [twelve] frames per second of a man passing quickly in front of him. This was the origin of cinema.

Dr. Marey was a rather ugly little Burgundian with small eyes, but always admirably dressed in a frock coat that looked as if it had just come from the tailor. Some twenty years later, I was having lunch one day at Foyot's when I saw Maurice Emmanuel arrive: “You once knew Dr. Marey,” he said to me. “He's in Paris just now and he's going to die soon. He asked me to come to find you and ask you to play Beethoven's sonatas for him, as you used to do.”

Very moved, I answered Emmanuel: “When do I have to go?” —“Very quickly, as soon as possible, because he will die very soon.” —“I’ll go to see him this evening.”

The scientist had long ago settled in Naples, where he had set up his laboratory, in order to study a small fish of an extremely rare species that is found only in the Gulf of Naples or at the mouth of the Thames. His laboratory was in Posillipo.

I arrived at the precise hour at Marey’s, whom I was surprised to find looking very good, and admirably dressed in a frock coat, patent leather boots, etc. —“What is this joke?” I asked. —“I am at the end of my heart disease. I am watching its progress, and have a week at the most.

I left Paris on January 15 [1893] to go and direct the first two performances of La Korrigane at the Royal Theater in Budapest. Ordinarily, nothing could be easier than this thirty-hour journey by the fast train—the Orient- Express—that goes twice a week from Paris to Constantinople. Last month, however, there were hazards to encounter on the snow-covered tracks, where all passage was interrupted as soon as a light breeze amused itself by accumulating snow at the curves in the track. So the trains experienced considerable delays, or did not arrive at all. Thus, during my stay in Hungary, I never saw a traveler leave the hotel where I was staying, without taking care to telephone the station to find out if the service was operating regularly.

So, we flee Paris on Sunday evening, dine in the restaurant car, go to bed in the sleeping car, try to sleep, and wake up around seven o’clock in Stuttgart, completely amazed by the novelty of the landscape.

How picturesque it is—this deep and winding gorge that leads from the capital of Württemberg under the rule of Ulm! We are fortunate to escape the threats of the season and to be able to slip through thick walls of snow laboriously piled up on the sides of the tracks by numerous teams of railroadmen.

The gorge widens, our pace quickens, and we descend on a fairly steep slope. Here is Ulm: twenty-two degrees of cold; the Danube rolls in great yellowish bubbles with the speed of a furious torrent; against the blue sky, the admirable gothic tower of the cathedral, lit by a sparkling sun, stands out with ivory tones. In the surrounding countryside, there's snow and fir trees, here and there peasants in sleds.

From Ulm to Munich, it's only a vast plain buried under an icy crust; two minutes stop in Augsburg, five in Munich; then we steam full speed along the last foothills of the Bavarian Alps with their curious shapes and jagged peaks, and at sunset we reach the Austrian border at Simbach, on the banks of the Inn. Our eyes are blinded by the reflection of the sun on the snow! Formerly one passed through Salzburg; no doubt the northern route is more practical in winter.

Madame Marcel Dupré found the only known copy of the 103-page typescript of Widor's “Souvenirs autobiographiques” among her husband's papers after his death on May 30, 1971. In a letter dated December 30 of that year, she related her recollection of it to Gabrielle Guibaud, Widor's niece:

The cover to the “Souvenirs autobiographiques,” in the hand of Monet, specifies: “1. This is a complete reproduction of the notes taken, without corrections. It is on this text without any editing that the volume will be constructed. 2. Certain chapters remain that I must do myself, or reproduce certain articles.”

Madame Widor was extremely protective of her husband, and in his waning months worried that he would be “induced to take some imprudent risks, which happens too often.” In addition, she had little confidence in his efforts to make some final revisions to his works, writing to Albert Schweitzer: “I foresee nothing good coming from these alterations.”

Very little information regarding Édouard Monet has surfaced, other than that he was a member and secretary of the Comité de Souscription pour la Restauration des Grandes Orgues du Trocadéro (Subscription Committee for the Restoration of the Trocadéro Grand Orgue). Two letters in the editor's possession, dated March 10 and 11, 1926, list the main committee members: Widor, president; Marcel Dupré, vice-president; Émile-Alphonse Leduc, treasurer; Édouard Monet, secretary; Jean Maciet, assistant secretary. Under Monet's and Maciet's names, they are identified as organists.

At some point, an unidentified person reviewed the typescript of the “Souvenirs autobiographiques,” and added a few handwritten marginal notes as well as a cover sleeve (transcribed below) on which passages are cited to potentially confirm the period of the interviews. However, the specific dates were not researched; I have provided these in brackets:

Having learned of my success, Agénor Bardoux very kindly wanted to please me, and in turn offered me either the red ribbon or the commission of a ballet at the Opéra. I naturally chose the ballet. Auguste Vaucorbeil contacted François Coppée who proposed an initial subject. But it did not seem to fit the customs of the Opéra, so a few days later he gave us the scenario of La Korrigane [op. 45, 1880].

I was lucky to have as my main interpreter a young Milanese student from the School of Milan: Mlle Rosita Mauri, who was precisely the ideal character for Coppée's ballet. She was full of talent, vigor, elegance, and spirit, all at the same time. It was a long time ago when the Opéra had seventy subscribers for three days, which gave them the right to go backstage at intermissions.

At that time, the future Edward VII, Prince of Wales, was spending the autumn in Paris and came to the Opéra every evening. I still see myself chatting daily (every evening cordially) with the future majesty on the stage of the Opéra during our rehearsals. He was highly intelligent and interested in everything. Before leaving Paris, he asked me if I would agree to come and play the organ at the Albert Hall on the occasion of an event he was organizing for the benefit of his London hospital. I accepted, and it was in memory of my trip to London that he gave me the interesting portrait of Handel that currently adorns the mirror above the fireplace in the small organ salon [salon de l’orgue] of Saint-Sulpice.

On December 1, 1880, the premiere of La Korrigane took place at the Paris Opéra. The rehearsals had been charming, without any hitches, accidents, or incidents. The premier dancer, Mlle Rosita Mauri, by her spirit, good grace, and talent had conquered all hearts. The Comtesse d’Haussonville [Louise de Broglie], mother of Comte Gabriel-Paul d’Haussonville, having heard some gossip of what was happening at the Opéra (of which she was a subscriber) said to me: “She's charming, but above all don't marry her!”

The premiere was very well received. An unexpectedly select audience included both Léon Gambetta and the Prince of Wales.

We had an official reception for the Romanian court [Queen Marie, likely with her diplomatic aids] at one of our Institute meetings with President Alexandre Millerand. The sovereigns’ armchairs had been placed in front of the members. The chairman was Frédéric Laguillermie, who was not a man of the world, having never left his studio, and he wasn't used to speaking in such circumstances. He had made a three-point speech, written in very large letters, each paragraph having only four lines. He had studied them with great care, and even took foreign affairs into consideration. He read the first four lines more or less well, but then he realized that he was losing his thought at the beginning of the second paragraph. Suddenly, he tore off his eyeglass, threw his speech into the air and shouted: “Hey! What the devil! I’m not used to talking to kings!” The sovereigns were delighted, Millerand convulsed in laughter, and even Mme Millerand gave way to the joie de vivre of that incomparable moment.

The Library of Leuven was burned down by the Germans during the war, right under the eyes of the university professors and the citizenry led by the mayor Mgr Simon Deploige, vice-rector of the university. Bishop Deploige was a distinguished Brussels lawyer who had become a priest a few years earlier.

A committee based in Paris, at the Institute, took charge of reconstructing the building and reconstituting the library. Donations were centralized in Paris. Flameng was responsible for repairing the paintings, the designated architect was Whitney Warren, and our colleague Jean Dampt for the sculptures. The work was completed fairly quickly [1928], and the importance and number of the volumes were reconstituted just as quickly, as you know. People remember the quarrel which was aroused by the proposed famous pediment inscription: “Destroyed by German fury,” recalling German brutality. Some timid people wanted to change the inscription, but it ended up sticking.

The very solemn inauguration of the new Leuven Library took place in the presence of King Albert, the Queen [Elisabeth], Cardinal Joseph Mercier, Léon Bérard, and the chairman of the Municipal Council of Paris. The ceremony took place outdoors, and I will never forget the altogether odd impression of the bugle calls of the Belgian lancers’ regiment responding to the stanzas of the consecrating psalm after the Mass that was said outdoors. And I recall a very personal memory that is quite curious: during the Mass, I could not take my eyes off the admirable Christ figure that shone on the altar under a bright sun; it was the only adornment. I asked about the origin of it and was told that it was the Christ by Edmé Bouchardon that had been commissioned for the chapel at Versailles. When Louis XVI was imprisoned in the Temple, it was this Christ that was placed in his cell at his request. After the death of Louis XVI, it was given to his valet de chambre, Jean-Baptiste Canthaney Cléry, whose family was from Dunkirk. However, a few years ago the family's property was sold due to unfortunate business dealings, and this Christ was put up for sale and bought by Leuven.

I took over the organ class in succession to Franck in November 1890; the class had [previously] been taught by the man known as grandfather Benoist, who was organ professor at the Conservatory for countless years without ever having been titular of any church. He had been very good at his task and had excellent musicians in his organ class. He had them improvise, and he certainly attached more importance to performance than to technique.

In those days, professors were appointed by the director upon the presentation of three candidates, in order of merit. Today a vote is taken. After Franck's death, I was thus appointed by Ambroise Thomas, but I can say that no intrigue was involved in this appointment. I had been organist of Saint- Sulpice since 1870, given many concerts, and already published my first eight Organ Symphonies. I was in no way concerned with my appointment.

I first encountered Bach's music at the age of six or seven, and I still have in my library the Nägeli edition, from Basel, which predates that of Richault. He was the first French publisher who dared to publish Bach. He published three volumes of Preludes and Fugues, then three books of Chorales, which he donated to the Conservatory. The volumes of the Preludes and Fugues were put to use, but not the volumes of the Chorales. In this organ class, next to the blower that winded the organ, there was a small cupboard that contained all the school's necessary organ library, including the six Richault books. Strangely enough, the three books of J. S. Bach's Chorales were unknown at the Conservatory at that time; they were not played in competitions or examinations.

I will never forget the impression made on Ambroise Thomas who, whatever people may have said, was a very fine musician. Hearing Henri Libert—today the organist of the Basilica of Saint-Denis—play one of Bach's chorales, he stood dumbfounded, pressing the volume in his hands, and turning it over: “What is this? Why don't we play these Chorales? Could this student play one for us again?” The whole first book of Chorales, which let's admit most members of the jury did not know, was thus played by Libert to their great joy.

The Anonymous Author's Introduction

English Translation: The Text

In the following report, you can read about the Holy Land and all the lands of Outremer [beyond the sea], and about the castles and cities that have been located there and are still standing there, then about the kings, dukes, lords, and patriarchs, bishops, abbots, canons, priests, monks, and all kinds of other people who lived there and still live there to this day, and about their faiths and religious sects, and about their culture, that is about Christians, Jews, and heathens [Muslims].

Outline

First of all, there is the kingdom of Jerusalem which is situated in the middle of the world, as has been observed in the past, which used to belong to the Jews, then to the Christians, and now to the Muslims. In that kingdom, most people are Christians. Turning from that kingdom to the east, there are all those kingdoms of India that are ruled by Prester John, and all the people who live there are Christians. Turning further east, there are the kingdoms of Nubia and Tharsin, and the people who live there are also Christians. Melchior and Balthazar had ruled there, two of the Three Holy Magi who brought offerings to Our Lord in Bethlehem. Northeast of those lands are the kingdoms of Georgia and Abkhazia, and the people who live there are pious, upright Christians. To the north of them are situated the kingdoms of Greece and Armenia, and the people populating them are also Christians. All those people who live in those kingdoms are Christians, but they are not equally good Christians. They differ from each other through all kinds of articles and points in their faith, as described below.

Each one of these kingdoms is just as powerful as the one ruled by the Sultan except that some are located next to water and deserts, apart from other natural barriers. About all these Christians who live in these lands, we must say that neither one believes in the same faith as the other. Some are called Latins, Syrians, Indians, Nubians, Armenians, Greeks, Georgians, Nestorians, Jacobites, Maronites, Copts, Ethiopians, Maronians, and Soldinians. All these groups of Christians who live there have all kinds of their own churches, but no one enters into the churches of the others.

At this point Reynard heard a little bluetit and said: “Greetings, my dear friend! I am really in the mood to kiss you, but God knows you are being very standoffish. My dear friend, you should demonstrate your love and trust—God Himself would be sorry if I were to find you wanting in that respect! In the name of all that I owe to your child, whose godfather I am, I am your faithful and open friend.” The bluetit replied: “I’ve heard quite a lot of bad things about you, Reynard, and I’m afraid of your eyes, which look very cruel to me. If you keep them shut, then I’ll be happy to kiss you three times on the mouth.” Reynard was very pleased at this tasty little prospect and was greatly looking forward to it. His dear friend, however, was still sitting high up in a tree. Reynard screwed his eyes shut, just as his friend had instructed. The bluetit picked up a piece of dirt in her foot, hopped from one branch another and dropped it neatly into Reynard's mouth. Now she saw clearly her friend's wicked plan. With bared teeth he grabbed at the piece of dirt, but his bluetit friend got out of his way. He had put in a lot of effort for a very poor reward and was again most unhappy about it. “Oh Lord,” he said, “how could You let a little bird trick me like that! I am really, really cross about it!” [177–216]

In addition to the whole-tone and octatonic scales, Debussy also used the chromatic scale in opposition with diatonic writing in his works from 1912–13. This use of the chromatic set becomes obvious in “Feux d’artifice,” where the complete chromatic is heard at the climax of the prelude as simultaneous white-and black-note glissandi. The question regarding this scale is quantity: What amount of the total chromatic is needed to imply this set? Further, does this set need to be tightly packed—without any gaps larger than a semitone—or can it simply be an atonal collection of notes? These answers come when Debussy's use of the chromatic set is explored as implying it in two distinct ways: through chordal superimposition and chromatic voice leading. I now explore the first of these techniques, specifically looking at which types of chordal superimpositions Debussy favored and how this technique was treated by contemporary theorists.

Debussy's First Chromatic Routine

In a harmony treatise written by René Lenormand before Debussy's death, the concept that the author had the most trouble with was superimposed triads. Lenormand wrote his treatise the year that Debussy published his second book of preludes, so he was unable to include these works in his list of examples from “modernist” works. This is unfortunate, because these twelve preludes openly use superimposed triads, and their presence might have caused Lenormand to study this phenomenon a bit more deeply. As it is, Lenormand favors high tertian spellings and the use of pedals rather than the superimposition of multiple triads, and when his two methods fail to properly account for a passage, he resorts to explaining foreign notes as appoggiaturas. In fact, the most famous example of appoggiatura chords in the trio of the seventh of Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales is analyzed in Lenormand complete with reduction to reveal the underlying harmony (example 4.1).

Lenormand admits that in these chords, born of appoggiaturas, “the suppression of the note of resolution of the appoggiatura is a recent practice.” Since Lenormand's time, theorists have preferred the label polychord, with the understanding that composers have most commonly partitioned the notes so that the chords are not only registrally distinct but each have their own unique identity in the form of a given inversion. This makes the single polychord audibly composed of distinct elements.

INTRODUCTION

Before 1914, the Royal Navy, confident of its supremacy at sea, gave little consideration to either the production and laying of mines or to sweeping minefields. Serious losses of warships and merchantmen to enemy mines forced the hasty organisation of sweeping flotillas of converted trawlers, paddle steamers and tugs, reinforced later by purpose-built vessels. As close blockade of enemy ports by surface warships was impossible, in part because of enemy minefields, the British resorted to sowing their own mines around Heligoland and off the Jade and Ems, initially to inhibit sorties by the High Seas Fleet but, after the introduction of submarine warfare against shipping, increasingly to block the exits of U-boats. In addition to mining by submarines and converted minelayers in the Bight, the British sought also to close the Straits of Dover and Otranto to the U-boats, using nets and surface and air patrols as well as mines. Despite prodigious efforts, none of these measures met with much success. At best they represented an inconvenience to the enemy. The Germans swept marked channels regularly and natural forces swept away other mines. Moreover, the standard British mine was notoriously ineffective, though by the time the Americans came into the war, the Admiralty had begun to copy the much more reliable German pattern [272].

The Americans, imbued with an offensive spirit, a desire for instant solutions and an unquenchable faith in the ability of modern technology to solve any question, at once pressed for the wholehearted introduction of mine and net barrages at every narrow point, especially the northern outlet of the North Sea. Their somewhat accidental discovery of a wonder mine and ingenious proposals emanating from the Coast and Geodetic Survey of the Department of Commerce were seized upon by the zealous Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Stressing the high potential efficacy of barriers across the Straits of Dover and Otranto and, most importantly, between Scotland and Norway, he urged Wilson, the Navy Department and the visiting Balfour mission to adopt the scheme and the American antenna mine. A North Sea Barrage would lie nearer British bases than German and therefore it could be patrolled and defended without undue difficulty and would pose the Germans an intractable and demoralising problem. Roosevelt presented the idea with all the zest and imagination for which he was noted.