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presupposes that the world is merely and entirely an object of knowledge, something to be known. Instead, Nietzsche praised vital, living experience—aesthetic experience—as a more worthy goal: “We have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art,” Nietzsche wrote in his Birth of Tragedy, “for only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified” (Birth of Tragedy, Allen and Unwin, p. 50). “It is necessary to raise ourselves with a dar-ing bound into a metaphysics of Art” (p. 183), he claimed, in order to truly live and experience the world. Art and aesthetic experience is simply more real and more valuable for us, Nietzsche says, than knowledge.

That’s why, he suggested, we should treat our own lives and selves as works of art:

One thing is needful.—To “give style” to one’s character—a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fix them into an artistic plan… . For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry and art.14

Satisfaction? Nietzsche thinks we can find it by molding and shaping ourselves, even if it means fighting or ravishing ourselves : “This secret self-ravishment, this artists’ cruelty, this delight in imposing a form upon oneself as a hard, recalcitrant, suffering material and in burning a will … into it.”15

Nietzsche’s proposal is puzzling. Normally one has to step back from a painting, sculpture, photograph, stage play to really see it as art. Sure, there are “happenings” when the difference between the performer and the performance can get blurred. But how might one step back from oneself to see the work of art Nietzsche urges us to be?

That’s why there are two Jaggers. By creating and becoming a character beyond himself, Mick was able to create a rare and celebrated art form. He was able to remove his own inhibitions and characteristics and become something that people wanted to watch. People came to rock concerts not only to hear The Stones play but to see the legendary craziness in the lead singer of the world’s greatest rock’n’roll band.

Jagger’s whole life—on and off stage—can be seen as a complex work of art that encompasses the two Jaggers. Mick certainly distinguishes his on stage and off stage personae, as he does in this BBC interview:

Q: I’d like to know if the Mick Jagger one sees on stage is the real persona or a caricature developed over time and influenced by what you think the public expect. Ian James, Aylesbury, England.

A: What a cynical question! A character perhaps. Or different characters within characters because you’ve got to do the sad, the happy, the cynical—whatever song you’re doing. It’s a bit like acting. Obviously I think the on-stage character when you’re in front of fifty thousand people is slightly different from the character that would be talking to you today, one-on-one, or making the kids’ breakfast. You don’t want to be making the kids’ breakfast going [puts on stadium voice] ‘Are you alright?’ Obviously it’s different being on stage than being at home. 16

There has to be a difference if Mick is to be artist and work of art at the same time.

You’re So Not Vain

Of course, thinking of and treating one’s life aesthetically or as a work of art, can be vain and self-indulgent. You wouldn’t want to be like Carly Simon’s ex, always keeping “one eye in the mirror” to make sure your performance is going well. But the mere fact that Jagger is a legend that inspires and captivates so many people suggests a larger role for his (and Nietzsche’s) project. The kind of self-ravishment involved can create glory that energizes others to follow this guiding light of aesthetics, in the Nietzschean spirit.

Jagger’s aesthetic sense that a life well lived should be sublime and ravishing, a great and dangerous light, unhampered by convention, is unmistakable at the concert in 1969 in London’s Hyde Park, during which the band paid tribute to Brian Jones who had died shortly