Homers Contest

In the two early essays from 1871—2 included in this volume, The Greek State and Homer s Contest , we see at work the stress Nietzsche places on political life not as an end in itself but as a means to the production of great human beings and an aristocratic culture. Nietzsche presents a stark choice between culture and politics (or the claims of justice). He argues that if we wish to promote greatness and serve the ends of culture, then it is necessary to recognize that an essential aspect of society is economic servitude for the majority of individuals. We must not let the urge for justice. . . swamp all other ideas or, as Nietzsche memorably puts it, the cry of compassion must not be allowed to tear down the walls of culture . 

Hesiod, Works 5 Days i43ff cf. also Daybreak, section 189, and Homer s Contest (see below, Supplementary material, pp. 174-81). 

On the other hand, if we take away the contest from Greek life, we gaze immediately into that pre-Homeric abyss of a gruesome savagery of hatred and pleasure in destruction. Unfortunately, this phenomenon appears quite often when a great figure was suddenly withdrawn from the... 

See Marrou, History, pp. 166-67, for sports contests, and pp. 230-31, for contests in reciting or singing Homer and the lyric poets. 

---