We began this semester with the idea that justice, to be justice, must partake of the beautiful.  It is  not a sufficient condition, but a necessary condition.  We defined beauty, in turn, within the traditional western canon, and therefore said it bespoke proportion, contrast, discord, rhythm, harmony -- in short perfecting all conceptual opposites into a whole.

This means, in part, that in some way the natural and instinctual must be a part of just action as much as the reflective and systematic, the feminine archetype as much as the masculine, grace as much as law.  We read three texts exploring these ideas.   Another name for this activity is given by Aristotle as the exercise of practical wisdom.  It is the capacity of the judge to know what is exactly proper in a complex and particular case,  or the base runner to know when to take the green light.  It is difficult sophisticated knowledge transformed by practice into reflex, and prompted and urged by instincts honed by an astute mind.

None of this provides right answers to problems for all semester we have seen the human being cannot avoid the tragic.  Rather it provides a way to go when the tragic is unavoidable, or when the final answer as to the rightness of our cause or belief is unclear.  We may act nobly and gallantly, as we go down the path, though we may never know if the path we choose was ultimately correct.
 

Now, I asked you to read these few pages on Nietzsche to lift the discussion up to perhaps the highest tier.   To beautify, is not only to act justly, it is to imitate the Divine for that is Divinity's activity -- the creating of order, harmony, the reconciling of what is opposite into a unified wondrous miraculous whole.  And this is where Nietzsche is most misunderstood.  Note page 41 again.  He detests nineteenth century Christen morality, but he speaks of Divinity as understood in the Christen western tradition. Keep this in mind as I speak.

As Apollo and creator, man orders and structures his world through language and conceptualizing ideas, building institutions thereby bringing significance and meaning to senseless life.  Senseless in the way that an earthquake makes no statement, or a flood carries no intention.  Life here is understood as nature.  Yet, as we saw in Creon, this can be a monstrous power.  The masculine archetype alone kills.  It is the law that does not take account of new circumstances.  It is the rigidity that can no longer attempt the unexpected and thereby perform an heroic act.

Hence, as Diyonsius and creator, man falls to frenzy and rapture whereby he is uplifted to places the reflective dare not go, prompted to undertake what no rational man would.  Hence, Henry at Agincourt, Antigone daring to bury her brother. The chaotic, the untempered, and wild gives the order its vigor, imagines the impossible, and bears the unbearable.

Now in that these two stances are necessary to true art, and in that the beautiful comports justice proper, it may be said that just action is not about avoiding suffering.  For, creation also entails suffering.  Hence one may say the example of the Cross is not to remit suffering for the human but to show us to suffer in name of something.  For Nietzsche, it is in name of no further end than to act nobly at each given moment which means with reflection and instinct, power and restraint, courage and humility so that a witness may say "that moment was perfect" independent of what benefit or gain it did or did not achieve.  Last, to do this, says Nietzsche, is to imitate the Divine and hence to truly praise Him.