When studying Creativity—capital “C,” as opposed to her defanged cousin, the small “i” innovation—one will likely run across Nietzsche, which means considering his first major work, The Birth of Tragedy (TBOT).
Now, in reference to writing, deep within TBOT (Section 12), Nietzsche discusses the poet Euripides and poses a question about him:
How did an excessive respect for his audience lead him to treat his audience with disrespect?
Nietzsche answers this by saying that Euripides ignored his audience (who Euripides, per Nietzsche, felt he was superior too), and instead only considered the judgment of two spectators.
The first spectator of Euripides (the poet) is Euripides the thinker. For better or worse, this is one every writer knows well, and I see no way to divorce oneself from this judge.
And second spectator?
This is Socrates, Nietzsche’s mortal enemy. Socrates is the rational man, the man of reasonableness, of moderation—the wisest of all men, but one who knows nothing.
Nietzsche makes it clear in TBOT that this second spectator, Socrates, represents the downfall of the greatness of Ancient Greece: the Greece of Homer, of Pericles, of Heraclitus.
Is he right? I am not sure. Isn’t Plato, as a creator, a poet who can stand with Homer?
Yet as writers we do need to be cautious making one of our judges the rational, moderate man—who today has become the average man.
Beware the second spectator.