Beyond Good & Evil : Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future

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Summary: An incredible book worth reading by everyone alive
Review: My maxim has always been this: keep in mind that truth is not to be acquired, but to be romanced. You can imagine my joy when I read the preface to this book: "Supposing truth to be a woman. . ." Now supposing this book to be a woman- what? is the suspicion not well founded that all readers of Nietzsche, when they have been dogmatists, have had little understanding of women? My answer: no it is not well founded! There are many students of this moustached master who indeed know the ways of this "woman," who lust after her as a wench and worship her as a goddess! Philosophy is very much a dance, and Nietzsche has told us plenty about our partners. Nietzsche is not denying the human understanding of truth, but rather affirming a different, more intimate association with it. This relationship, I find, is very adequately illuminated in the analogy of romance. And it is in the embrace of this truth that Nietzsche finds Life, in the New Testament sense.

There ends my real review, but before I conclude, I find it necessary to touch on a particular issue. I have read many an interpretation of Nietzsche that describes him as either discriminatory or over-critical or both. Indeed: the two are by no means unrelated. One must first realize that in his criticisms, if you find that Nietzsche is singling out a certain group of people, you are probably not reading the book. This is the only solution I have found for the problem of Nietzsche being perceived as discriminatory. I have seen passages cited from his books as "proof" that he was misogynistic and therefore unenlightened. These people, therefore, must not have read any of his books, excluding the said citations. For am I the only one to notice that for every paragraph he has written against women, there are 200 pages written against men? Nietzsche is not at all concerned with destroying individual groups of people.

Now the second problem: that he is negative and over-critical. All I can say here is that this is not the objective of his writing, that although he is the philosopher with a hammer, he is not inherently a destroyer. Although this might sound somewhat cliche, nonetheless pay heed: he is destroying the current state of affairs to make way for what is new and better. It is because he loves what he has seen in his visions that he "makes straight the path of the Lord," as Isaiah so eloquently put it (and John the Baptist so aptly reitterated). The Christian analogy goes even further. Jesus says that he does not come to bring peace. Would anyone interpret that to mean that Jesus's teachings are all about destruction? Certainly not. Such it is with Nietzsche.

For a bird to be born, it must destroy its egg. If you dislike Nietzsche's criticism (or my own criticism and censure, for that matter), then you are cursing the flying bird for cracking the shell.

Rating:
Summary: A delightful romp through the prejudices of philosophers
Review: This book can be regarded as a sort of philosophical emetic. Nietzsche demolishes one philosophical prejudice after another, proving how baseless and cowardly most of the pieties of traditional philosophy, and especially those of German idealistic philosophy, really are. While here and there Nietzsche may go overboard, the number of insights that he offers, all couched in his prankish, brilliantly aphoristic style, more than compensates for the occassional lapse in good judgment. His inspired use of language is second to none among philosophers. Who else would think of describing Kant's philosophy as "stiff and decorous Tartuffery," or the cuasa sui as "the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far, it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic." Or what about his penetrating comment about that free and "unfree" will? "The 'unfree will' is mythology," Nietzsche writes: "in real life it is only a matter of strong and weak wills." Isn't that the truth! Philosophy doesn't get much better than this. Highly recommended, but only to good readers, readers who can really think. Bad readers should stick with Plato, Hegel, Rand, Marcuse and other "cowards before the truth," as Nietzsche would describe them.

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Summary: Reductio ad absurdum - sheer brilliance - a must read!
Review: Walter Kaufmann's translation offers helpful footnotes and comments for the reader. The translation is fluid and easy to read. Kaufmann captures Nietsche's often humorous critiques as well as his fabulous aphorisms ("Where man cannot find anything to see or to grasp, he has no further business"). Regardless of one's point of view "Beyond Good and Evil" is a must read for anyone who takes a serious interest in the development of philosophy, especially existentialism and nihilism. Compared to the works of Immanuel Kant the writings of Nietsche are a sheer delight - but that is another review...

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Summary: A Profound Book
Review: Nietszche:Beyond Good and Evil, reviewed by [e-mail] In the early chapters, Nietzsche in effect wipes the slate clean, showing how previous philosophers and moralities were in their grasp inadequate. There is a "definite fundamental scheme of possible philosophies"(Aphorism 20), as there is of possible moralities(260), and particular philosphers and moralists merely fill in their respective places on these spectrums. Nietzsche offers a comprehensive critique of all such systems. The philosophers are unable to perceive even what in themselves wishes for truth, and they do not see that truth and virtue may in fact derive from deceptiveness and wickedness, which may be necessary functions for life itself. (Aph. 2-4) The will to truth may be merely a refinement of the will to ignorance.(24) Certain falsehoods may be nourishing and necessary physiologically. Deceptive appearance is necessary for life itself. (34) In a voice of irony, he acknowledges that we might need mathematical science, despite its falsehood. Philosophers and scientists wish to impose their morality, their ideal, their concepts on nature out of their pride, wishing to appropriate nature. Less the truthfulness of their concepts than this underlying will to power motivates the self-deceptively put "will to truth".

It is but an old moral prejudice that truth is worth more than appearance, or even that there is in reality any opposition between "truth" and "falsehood" at all. They may be merely shades of the same thing, "degrees of appearance".(34) The very existence of "stuff" or matter that underlies the "real world" is highly doubtful. Likewise, even the basic assumptions of a unitary "self" that thinks, of an "I", is also but an old falsifying superstition to which we cling for comfort and vanity. Again, " free will" being an illusion shows the importance of intentionality to be illusory. "The decisive value of an intention lies precisely in what is unintentional in it." (32) In this, he anticipates psychoanalysis.

Thinking about and questioning morality is itself immoral. (228) We have, after all, pluripotential access within to every barbarism(223). Morals, we've discovered, are a mere phenomenon of nature, not absolute nor above nature; there are no universal goods or values (194).Our modern "scientific", historic,scholarly, observations and evaluations of all moralities and cultures,then, puts us in the position at best of being parodists of all moralities, undermining every one.(223) Our "transcendent" position is empty. Thus, our intrinsic, physiological aggression (will to power), manifested as "scientific skepticism", has relentlessly critiqued all that we loved or worshipped, utterly destroying each in turn. Having diagnosed our new condition, that we have assassinated not only the "old soul concept", ie, the "subject", showing that it is a questionable mere appearance as much as the "object", Nietzsche then sketches out the grim consequences . We have sacrificed ourselves, reality, finally even God himself, leaving us with only the Nothing to worship, "the final cruelty."(55) Recognizing that there is no objective foundation for morality in the world, that there is no universal moral law (186) , that the inner essence of nature and man is no more than raw will to power, instills profound pessimism. The truth that there is no truth may be deadly, as put by Leo Strauss. It is better that few people realize this; the general propogation of this insight could be calamitous; Thus, it is good that the study of morality is boring. (But boredom denies life...) (228) Can there nevertheless somehow be life-affirmation from this insight? Finding or asserting this seems a principle goal of Nietche's.

The strength of drives per se, of the will to power, which includes the capacity to sublimate, train and cultivate that raw will to higher forms of "spirituality", may be a way out. But, without any absolute nor objective standard from any other source than that who wills, the ultimate value of what is willed can derive only from the source of will itself; it is self-posited. The one who wills most strongly creates values, creates the orientation of better and worse, and need not refer nor resort to any standard independently of his own nobility. Nietszche seems to celebrate this, but he recognizes the dangers, describing even proto-Nazism (208). The "philosopher of the future" , with these insights in hand, creates truth and value, rules and legislates, becoming himself the telos of mankind .(211) Man is both creature and Creator(225), in the image of God most literally; man created God in his own image. The"philosopher of the future" extends the sphere of his responsibility to include the all.; he might undertake "audacious and painful experiments" that "the softhearted and the effeminate tastes of democracy could not approve... They will be harder (and perhaps not always only against themselves) than humane people might wish." (210) He raises the question: Is cruelty itself a good, merely a necessity, or merely to be recognized as a primary reality of nature, or of life?

Men and values are not equal, and according to the self-posited valuation of the great men, since they are themselves the Whither and Wherefore of mankind, what is right for one is hardly fair for all. Exploitation of others might be necessary; As opposed to Kant's moral imperative, by which each human consciousness must be only regarded always as an end in itself, never a means, this new morality, truer to the nature of things, unhinged from any absolute, has all lower men as only means to the ends of the men with the strongest wills. We can see how this is a "dangerous" book, which, if misinterpreted or misrepresented, as in fact it was for political ends by some Germans in the 1930's, might be used to pervert Nietcszche, making him seem to promote the worst outrages, when in fact he was merely the sad herald. Samuel T. Goldberg, M.D.; University of Maryland School of Medicine; Dept. of Psychiatry

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Summary: Nietzsche Against the Grain
Review: Beyond Good And Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future represented a shift in Nietzsche's basic goals as an author. "After the Yes-saying part of my task had been solved, the turn had come for the No-saying, No-doing part: the revaluation of our values so far, the great war..."

Nietzsche goes on to describe Beyond Good and Evil as a "critique of modernity." The modernity attacked includes culture broadly construed; but Nietzsche appears to be especially concerned with the direction of philosophy and its role in future history. Indeed, the subtitle is "Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future." The book opens with a Preface and first section that are often witty in criticizing traditional philosophy and its presuppositions. After the famous opening line about truth being a woman, Nietzsche asks, "Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women?"

Nietzsche attacks particularly the dogmatism of philosophers. Philosophers have typically regarded themselves as seekers of truth--but from the book's beginning, Nietzsche casts suspicion on their motives. Philosophers, he argues, have simply assumed that truth is valuable, without inquiring as to whether this is so. They have posed their conclusions as objective, while in fact "every great philosophy so far has been...the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir." Unwittingly, philosophers have sought to impose their own moral outlook on nature itself, and read into it what they have wanted to find.

Nietzsche proposes a reassessment of the way philosophy has been practiced in physiological and psychological terms, recognizing how much against the grain his approach will seem.

Nietzsche proposes a new direction for philosophy, and a different kind of person as philosopher. Philosophers, according to this view, should be free spirits and great experimentalists, as opposed to the mere "philosophical laborers" that are often thought to be the true philosophers. The philosopher has "the most comprehensive responsibility" and "the conscience for the over-all development of man," and should utilize religion, education and political suggestions, although it is more concerned to propose a type of political arrangement (like Plato advocating philosopher-kings) than to argue for specific policies.

Central to the agenda of Nietzsche's future philosophers is a reconsideration of the value of conventional morality from a physio-psychological perspective. For the first time, in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche proposes to develop "a natural history of morals." He implies with this formulation that morality can be naturalistically described, that it is not a revelation from another, divine level of reality.

Nietzsche goes so far in employing naturalistic terms in his analysis that he describes the morality of his tradition as a "herd morality." In other words, people follow the same direction as others for the same reason that cows and sheep follow other cows and sheep. Nietzsche surely recognizes that many readers will find comparison between their moral beliefs and animal behavior offensive.

Nietzsche also suggests that multiple moralities have existed at the same time, and that they reveal their adherent's psychological perspective, which can be either healthy or not healthy. In particular, he suggests that master morality and slave morality are radically different in outlook. Master morality, typified by those in positions of power, involves a primary judgment of oneself as good, and a judgment of others in reference to one's own traits. Slave morality, by contrast, as the moral outlook of those who are oppressed, is primarily concerned with the reactions those in power might have to any contemplated act. Although slaves hate the master and everything the master represents, they still refer their behavior primarily to their master. Judging the master with hostility, they come to see him as evil, and only then come to judge themselves as relatively good. Nietzsche develops this account of master and slave morality much more thoroughly in Toward the Genealogy of Morals.

The concept of will to power appears prominently in Beyond Good and Evil. Again, Nietzsche takes issue with Schopenhauer's emphasis on will to life: "A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength--life itself is will to power; self preservation is only one of the direct and frequent results." Although emphatic in stressing will, Nietzsche is equally emphatic in denying freedom of the will. In fact, he considers the defense of freedom of will to be simply a manifestation of the asserters desire for power.

Will to power is also enlisted as a potential basis for explaining physiology and physiologically grounded behavior. Significantly, however, as in many other instances Nietzsche poses this "reduction" as a thought experiment.

Nietzsche's perspectivism, however, is discussed in more psychological terms elsewhere in Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche suggests that the perspective different individuals have of human reality depends on their relative stature as human beings. Nietzsche frequently adopts the image of height, describing those who see others from a higher vantage as having a more comprehensive view that is incommensurable with the perspective of those below them. Nietzsche emphasizes the importance of this order of rank, and he often claims that the human species consists of a proliferation of types, some of which are more valuable (or higher) than others. Of greatest importance for Nietzsche is the individual genius, upon whom culture most depends. Nietzsche's view on this matter is unrepentantly elitist: "For every high world one must be born; or to speak more clearly, one must be cultivated for it: a right to philosophy--taking that word in its great sense--one has by only virtue of one's origins; one's ancestors, one's 'blood' decide here, too."

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Summary: Stella Mars
Review: It is quaint and amusing to see some reviewers unable to "overcome" their own resentment - it is a sad commentary on the state of modern "womanhood" that such is what usually passes for feminine "thought" in these degraded and delusional days of "victim worship." All I can say is that yes - Jesus is the palpitating terror that wells up in the mind of a slave in between strikes of the lash - and Jesus has recently been renamed (rechristened?) and reconceptualized as a woman - responsible for nothing - creating nothing - only capable of parody and consumed by - resentment.

BGE is brilliant, it will destroy your preconceptions or destroy YOU in your inability to see through petty and infantile resentments (i.e. "menstrual stain"). It is not a book about "hate" or "misogyny" or any other modern fear-obsession-neurosis. It is about mind and soul, and damn everything else! Not a book for "slaves..."

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Summary: I guess it's a "Guy" thing
Review: Here's your hero, guys:

page 89, sect 145: "Comparing man and woman on the whole, one may say: woman would not have the genius for finery if she did not have an instinct for a secondary role"

page 116, sect 202: "They are at one, the lot of them, in the cry and the impatience of pity, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally, in their almost feminine inability to remain spectators, to let someone suffer."

Froderick does more than argue against these traits. He clearly associates them with women, while he discounts them. Not that you big dumb brutes need any more rationalization for subjugating women. It's too bad there's no such thing as reincarnation, 'cause I'd love to see Frayderick reborn as a woman. Then maybe he'd see things in a new way.

The cerebral cortex is just a place to reason away all the lusty things that come in the lower mind. But of course Frederick didn't know that, because he didn't much care for science, and was too busy justifying his hatred of Jews, Christians, and women.

I realize I'm probably horning in on some mutual admiration society developing about this particular site. So go ahead and zap me a negative feedback. I absolutely don't care. This one woman's opinion remains, like a mentrual stain, on your perfect little page.

How's that for "Finery"?

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Summary: Ravings of a disaffected and estranged intellect
Review: Recognizing that this is a translation from not-quite-modern German doesn't much help. Nor does it help that the man is quite often right on the mark, (once he gets around to making a point). What really turned me off about this work, (and Nietzsche's work in general), is the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that he puts down women. For Nietzsche, displaying what he considered feminine qualities is a bad thing, for men or women. Insults to women are rampant throughout the book. I found it difficult to square my sensitivity to this issue with the philosophy that Nietzsche was trying to describe. But I now understand the subterranean relationship between certain interpretations of this philosophy and the later rise of Fascism in Europe. For that, I'll the book two stars rather than one.

If you are willing to tough it out, you'll find yourself at least conversant in the philosophy of a key player of the early twentieth century. Hardly seems worth while for anyone but a student of Philosophy or History, though.

Frederick, if you were still alive, I'd have to say that, though you may be right about Christianity, you still have a lot to learn about the human equation (as do we all). Thanks, but no thanks.

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Summary: A fantastic text, true to the German and concise
Review: Walter Kaufmann, the translator of this work and the standardized texts of all other works by Nietzsche, presents Nietzsche's writing in a clear and concise manner. For introductory readers in philosophy, and even for experienced readers, his introduction and footnotes are invaluable.

Having read this text in succession with Thus Spoke Zarathustra (also translated by Kaufmann in The Portable Nietzsche), I understand many points on which Nietzsche stands, and I comprehend some of the many complex concepts (such as resentiment, slave morality, etc.) he introduces to explain his philosophy. For example, the many literary devices and conceptual terms Nietzsche uses in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (and in other texts such as On the Genealogy of Morals) are sometimes unclear; in this text, Nietzsche makes his best attempt at explaining himself without regard for the storyline which is the backbone of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This text therefore provides an excellent foundation for further reading of Nietzsche or for a "fingerprint" of Nietzsche's style and beliefs.

Beyond Good and Evil may very well be Nietzsche's clearest and most concise work, as far as Nietzsche goes. I have tremendous respect for this misunderstood philosopher, and that is why this book would be the best of his works to read: it is the least heretical, critical, and contradictory of his works. From this text, one may gather that Nietzsche was ultimately optimistic, and he foresaw a bright future where suffering could be annihilated. Although it may seem unfortunate to Christians that God hampers his dream, it is worthwhile to see the light in his perspective and to understand what this great philosopher stood for.

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Summary: Nietsche's best book!
Review: Essential! Nietzsche at his best. His most focused work.

BGE is essentially a collection of notes from underground expounding how we should reassess ourselves & evolve to higher states (individuate?). Nietzsche, as a man, experiences & relays depths perhaps previously unplundered.

Like all of Nietzsche's writings BGE is unerringly enigmatic, intense, & mesmeric if, however, fraught with a certain paradox.

I have greatly enjoyed this book, although in retrospect I don't think Nietzsche ever quite became the Ubermench/Superman he sought to be. Just because everything mentioned is true (what isn't?) doesn't necessarily make it good for the soul!

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