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Sossio Giametta: agriculture remains the true oil of humanity

The considerations of one of the main expert of Friedrich Nietzsche philosophy: “Men want to travel without baggage. They prefer lightheartedness and oblivion”

by Luigi Caricato
http://www.luigicaricato.net

Sossio Giametta was born in Frattamaggionare (Naples) in 1929, but lives in Bruxelles, where he was an official of the European Community Council of Ministers. He was part of the famous group of Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montanari, as curator of the Friedrich Nietzsche complete edition. This was the most significant and, at the same time, painstaking and complete critical edition of Nietzsche works, published at the same time in Italy and Germany. A decennial work, product of a hard immersion in the texts on one of the most significant philosopher for the development of the contemporary thought. Among the many works of Giametta, are especially noteworthy two volumes containing the Gay Science, Messina Idilly, Thus spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Devil, On the genealogy of Morality, Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Sossio Giametta

By means of Teatro Naturale, we are trying to build an ideal bridge between the rural world and the culture world. However, the way does not look easy. Am I in wrong?
No, you are not wrong. Countryside people do not matter about literature. Virgilio, Pascoli and many other writers cared of it. Philosophers, on the other hand, are indifferent to rural world; they don’t seek after any relationship with it. I do not seek after it, for example. Philosophy concerns only manhood.

Rudolf Steiner could be a reference point for the rural world, with his “Spiritual and Scientific Foundations for a Renewal of Agriculture”. But he moves in the circumscribed area of anthroposophy. In the rural sphere, that’s true, philosophy is not nourished, actually. Apart for some exceptions. Biodynamic farmers, for example. In any case, the attention for rurality misses. A rural thought does not exist. Simone Weil dealt with the workers’ world; is it more attractive?
Workers’ world is a novelty of recent history. It was a new reality, and for this reason it cached the attention of many intellectuals. Also Junger dealt with it in a high way, and Heidegger, as well. It was a novelty that burst into history putting many unknown problems. Agriculture is an important and everlasting reality, for sure, but the attention of philosopher for it, if ever was, is vanishing.

Which is the cause of it?
Philosophy doesn’t care about arts and crafts. Philosophy deals with men and realities, without concentrating about a particular art or craft. It doesn’t care what the men do, but what they say.

The rural world doesn’t love facing with great themes, besides education now reached all the classes of society. It is a very reluctant world. It doesn’t look for an approach with culture…
Agriculture remains the true oil of humanity. Without oil we could go on foot, but without food it is impossible to live. Agriculture is fundamental. In the present situation, where society pursues different values, agriculture is an essential value, which should not be neglected.

Which book would you suggest to a farmer? Or, in general, to people that have some connection to the rural world?
None. Tilling the soil is a hard work. I think that they relax watching some stupidity on Television. We also relax a bit in stupidity, let’s say. Trivialities are more restful. Sometimes men relax in the feminine stupidity, rather than in women intelligence; the latter shakes them, disturb them and does not make them relaxed.
Let’s now talk about philosophy. You spent many years studying Nietzsche. You translated him many times; hence you know his deeper spirit…
Yes, I translated almost all his works. My real engagement is comprehension. Translation, philology, but mainly comprehension and interpretation.

You wrote so much about him, as well, considering him as a philosopher, as a poet, as a moralist…
Yes, I studied him in its globalism. And I think that this kind of approach usually misses. This sentence could sound outrageous to someone, since everybody considers to say everything about Nietzsche. I tell about the slaughtered ox. Friedrich Nietzsche is actually a sort of slaughtered ox; everybody takes a piece believing in this way to take the whole. They have a steak and believe to own the whole ox, even the live ox. But the ox is not made up of steaks; it is another thing. Nietzsche is still an enigma. There was a tendency in exploiting him; in particular by the most creative interpreters, such as Jaspers, Heidegger, Deleuze and Klossowsky. Many philosophers forced Nietzsche very close to their thought, strengthening in this way their identity. Otherwise, many others acritically proposed again the nihilism in the psychosis to destroy values without considering that nihilism is actually one of the most important revolutions in history, after the ones by Copernico and Darwin. This is a revolution in the spirit sphere that makes men free, destroying, at the same time, many crutches that they usually employ.
Also Nietzsche suffers of it; we can see it in the “Gay Science” he proclaims the death of God with desperation, with an anxiety that never rests. The death of God is a great drama for man, because the man always leans on him. However this doesn’t change the substance of the matter: it is a great revolution and makes the men free. Nietzsche is a real hammer from the philosophic point of view, destroying ideals, morals, faiths, beliefs, and all the crutches human weaknesses and vices lead on. Hence, he created a heroic vision: the tragic assertion. He doesn’t want to mask reality. The chaotic wave of existence is destructive but regenerative at the same time. Whenever we want the goods of life, beauty, love, youngness, everything beautiful and good, the self-fulfillment and so on, we have to accept the tragedy in the deep.

Which is the work that more represents the thought of Nietzsche in its completeness?
Thus spoke Zarathustra. This is the positive work in which Nietzsche shows the way of greatness and all the sacrifices it requires. It is an exaltation of the human pureness that is the same as the greatness. Therefore Nietzsche transforms himself in an educator to human greatness and purity. People that undertake this way do not lean on the idea of God or similar things, but just on poetry. The lyric motif that predominates the work is the image of a full calyx that yearns for getting empty again. It is the fullness of wisdom that he accumulated in a life of sacrifices, studies and loneliness: he wants to offer it to men but they refuse it because it makes the life heavy. Men want to go expediti, i.e., light, without baggage. They lean on the lightheartedness and oblivion and do not accept wisdom.
Another positive work that preceded “Zarathrustra”, and was actually the first important work by Nietzsche, was The birth of tragedy, where a Dionysian vision was represented. These are the positive works by the poet and moralizer Nietzsche; the others are works by the skeptical Nietzsche.

by Luigi Caricato
http://www.luigicaricato.net
02 March 2009 Teatro Naturale International n. 2 Year 1

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