Yesterday I had to take an exam rather early in the morning, so I decided to get a cup of coffee at a Starbucks near school. After I finished drinking the coffee, I looked at the cup and found this rather Nietzschean “inspirational” message, evidently left over from Mothers’ Day:
“Mother-love is not inevitable. The good mother is a great artist ever creating beauty out of chaos.” --Alice Randall, Novelist, The Wind Done Gone, and first black woman to write a No. 1 country song.Now, I know I’m not supposed to take inspirational messages on coffee cups too seriously, so I just laughed at first. But the cup left me with a few questions: Would Nietzsche have approved of Mothers’ Day? Can there really be such a thing as a black-feminist-Nietzschean? And if so, would Nietzsche have approved of them writing country songs?
I'm still laughing trying to imagine Nietzsche listening to country music.
2 comments:
Ha! Funny you should mention that... Because some years ago I first thought of mothers as Germanic heroes. Not so much because they are "ever creating beauty out of chaos," but something more existential: they hold back the giants of barbarism.
As a child, I was taught to follow some fairly strict rules: You will not eat or drink in any of the rooms of the house which have carpet. You will sit down while eating and will not wander about with your food (even if it's a snack). After dirtying dishes you will rinse them and place them in the dish washer. You will not eat in front of the television.
While generally practical, such rules were not exactly essential. If I happen to eat my sandwich while bringing in the mail, is that such a bad thing? But living with other single men - creatures always on the verge of barbarism - I have come to see the wisdom of my mother's rules. If today you wander about while eating your sandwich, perhaps tomorrow you will fail to wash the knife with which you made it. From there comes mountains of unwashed dishes, then mold and swarms of insects. What comes next, cannibalism?
Like the vigilant gods of the Norse canon, the battle that mothers wage may ultimately end in failure, the Ragnarök of civility and basic household chores. But even if that should be the case, it is a battle worth fighting...
I just wanted to say this is an ideal post: short, witty and leaves you with something to think about. In my case that would be going back and reading Nietzche again.
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