Reading creatively: Why Nietzsche might have enjoyed Winnicott

Abstract

Nietzsche's philosophy has been adopted by and had an influence on some of the most disparate and opposing thinkers as well as non-academic movements in the west. I shall here attempt a psychoanalytic investigation of this cultural phenomenon. I am going to argue that part of the variation in our understanding and use of Nietzsche's ideas might be accounted for by a specific feature of Nietzsche's writing: contradictions. I shall begin by exploring this concurrence of seemingly opposing ideas in Nietzsche's works and advance the hypothesis that this is a deliberate aspect of his writing style – a performative application of what he calls incomplete thoughts. I suggest that we can gain an understanding of why Nietzsche might use this particular strategy by paralleling his works with those of Winnicott. I shall follow Ogden in saying that Winnicott's way of presenting his ideas can be understood as informed by his theoretical thoughts on playing and creativity. Like Winnicott, as I am going to argue further, Nietzsche might well have chosen to write in an incomplete way in order to provoke creative involvement among his readers. I want to say that, although the scopes of their respective projects are very different, both Winnicott and Nietzsche install the life affirming force of creative experiences at the core of their own thinking. I argue further that both of their writing styles can be understood as making a sacrifice in thematic clarity in order to gain the aesthetic means to provoke experiential evidence for this central claim in the reader. A Winnicottian lens shall therefore allow us to see how conflicting but original interpretations of his own work might be very much in line with Nietzsche's project as a philosopher and as a writer.