A few words on Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future by Friedrich Nietzsche 10 out of 10

 A few words on Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future by Friedrich Nietzsche

10 out of 10

 

 

It is certainly refreshing, intriguing, challenging to try and see at least part of what Friedrich Nietzsche is trying to make us understand in Beyond Good and Evil, which is surely more than controversial for this age, it would be outright cancelled – indeed, this is a problem with many of the greats of the past, our most important philosopher was sarcastic about the rules imposed in universities, where the likes of Michelangelo would not be allowed to teach because they lack on the preconditions imposed on professors now, who have to publish, get a doctorate and tick quite a few other boxes.

 

Speaking of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche proposes – in fact, he appears to be quite dictatorial and talks down to the others, sure that he is right, though he is so convinced that so many thinkers are just catastrophic…the British for instance, in particular their thinkers – the notion that good can be assimilated with the weak, and it looks as if it is better to be bad, as in stronger, determined and these are the ones that change the world…

Admittedly, the under signed has not grasped what Friedrich Nietzsche means, except for a small percentage and there are aspects that have not been understood, but it looks like he is too arrogant in throwing away a lot of (maybe good) work and saying, they have been damn wrong and this is what you need to know.

 

The Will to Power appears to explain…well, everything, and the philosopher is rejecting the separation between Good and Evil from the title, seeing the world as not manichaeistic, implying a fight between Good and Evil, but Beyond that, events, people are motivated by the Will to Power and the world is divided between those with a slave mentality and the others, the ones who rule the world…

It was overwhelming to find that Epicurus had a low opinion of Plato and his followers and that hurt this reader, who tries to be both a Stoic and an Epicurean – from what I have read, they do not cancel each other out, and the idea that stoics are hermits, living in caves, on roots and water is wrong, we have the example of Seneca, one of the wealthiest men on the planet in his time – indeed, I have discovered (this just joking, facetious and silly bragging) that Stoicism must be part of the cocktail of solutions to Save the Planet, for consumerism equals Doomsday, while restraint – ‘wish for what you already have’, to quote Stoics again – will give us a chance to keep having a world to live in…

 

‘Epicurus used to refer to Plato's followers as the Dionysus-flatters; he called Aristotle a waste who, after he spent his inheritance, fought as mercenary and sold drugs…How malicious philosophers can be!...I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes…In its original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies “Flatterers of Dionysius” — consequently, tyrants’ accessories and lick-spittle; besides this, however, it is as much as to say, “They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them” and is it true that Nietzsche has included this passage because he agrees with Epicurus, in his demolition of past philosophers…

 

There is another act of lese majesty when the question is asked ‘Did Socrates deserve poison was he a corrupter of young for Plato, the pride of antiquity, placed wrong in opposition with the good and as we return to the title, Nietzsche believes in explaining things Beyond Good and Evil, but this reader admits repeatedly that he does not get this high concept (well, understands something on the surface, but we are clearly beyond that, this is too complex at times, or it just seems damn wrong and maybe…evil)

Still, the under signed has lived in awe of Socrates and Plato, ever since he has had the chance to read the dialogues, at the age of eighteen, when Socrates was nec plus ultra, the crème de la crème of human thinking and nobody could beat him…besides, he was declared the wisest - true, in antiquity, today he would fall victim to Cancel culture and would not be allowed to teach, same way as Jesus is returning in The Brothers Karamazov, only to be met by the Grand Inquisitor, charged and presumably punished as too radical and offending the very religion that worships him, at least they had used to http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-brothers-karamazov-by-fyodor.html  - and there was a reason for that.

 

At least Socrates does not fall in the category of past philosophers that have been arrogant – Kant is taken to task and those that follow and emulate him, with the wrong headed belief that he had discovered the key, but what if he had been wrong all along, sure as he was of the Truth of his system – for Socrates never claimed that he knows anything, indeed, he had been declared the Wisest Man, exactly because he avoided the mistakes made by those in the public arena, who claimed they knew what they did not know…

Friedrich Nietzsche mocks those who believe they have the Key to the Kingdom of Wisdom and refers to the ‘virtus dormitiva’, a laughing matter in Moliere, where the doctor explains the ability to induce sleep not with a smart description, but just by saying it makes you sleep because…it has the ability to make you sleep and this is what many (or is all previous philosophers had done) thinkers had been doing all along…

 

There are many shocking statements made by Nietzsche – after all, it comes quite often in the movies, the statement he allegedly made, that ‘“God is dead: Nietzsche…Nietzsche is dead: God…” and the joke in which god concludes the game, stating that the philosopher is gone – but he seems to have had such a good opinion of the Jewish race – ‘such a tough, masculine nation – and he recommended getting rid of rabid anti-Semites, which is another surprise, for the Nazis made use of the philosopher, albeit it is now clear that they have been so ‘selective’, showing them for the ‘evil men ‘they were…