BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL by Friedrich Nietzsche
When I used to read Chomsky on politics, I read Victor Davis Hanson for good measure. Any time I start to really believe in something, I feel it’s my duty to hear the strongest voices that speak for its diametric opposite.
So after becoming enamoured last year with Kierkegaard and his intellectual progeny, I felt it was only right to pick up Beyond Good and Evil.
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche more or less invented Existentialism at the same time without having ever heard of each other. Existentialism is defined (here, roughly, and by me) as the post-enlightenment era of philosophy that finally figured out that philosophers had been kidding themselves about certainty and the real bases for their beliefs. Nietzsche begins his book with a roaring laugh at their expense.
The style of Good and Evil is postmodern and “literary” in that rather than coming out and saying what he means, Nietzsche tells a bunch of jokes and stories and makes contradictory observations, and hopes that the reader can figure it out (or maybe he hopes they can’t).
Nietzsche thinks that philosophers choose what they want to believe and then find reasons later. Rather than debunk the reasons, he usually laughs them away, and it usually works for me. Those who love making fun of super-serious people without girlfriends will find a hero in Nietzsche.
The point where Nietzsche diverges from Kierkegaard and becomes his evil twin is this: Kierkegaard chooses to believe that we can all only choose what we believe because God intentionally made the universe in such a way that matters of morality and theology are unprovable. Nietzsche believes in the necessity of choice because there is no God or morality, so we can make things up as we go along, raping and pillaging, and always laughing, all the way.
It’s actually a rather compelling vision, and even if Kierkegaard’s is better, Nietzsche is worth reading, even if only for the purpose of appropriating his transcendent, world-swallowing laugh.
Click here to get Beyond Good and Evil on Librivox, like I did.
August 1st, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Thanks for these thoughts on Nietzsche (which I’m still working on how to spell); I have to read his “On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense” for my literary criticism class this week. I had a little outburst against him in class yesterday, basically blaming him for the holocaust. My professor kindly but firmly contradicted me, and since he’s a way more intelligent and highly educated person than I, especially on all things related to Judaism in the 20th century, I can’t object. But he says Nietzsche doesn’t want to throw off morality, just to get us to think about it a bit harder. What do you think?
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:44 am
I think you’re totally right-on in blaming Nietzsche for the holocaust. It’s my experience that liberal arts professors feel obligated to defend Nietzsche because they’re moral relativists, and they don’t want to admit that in every cycle of history moral relativism has immediately preceded holocaust. That said, Nietzsche wasn’t antisemitic, so people who want to ignore the general picture to focus on the minutiae of its minor brushstrokes can say “Why look, he wasn’t like the Nazis at all!”.
In my opinion, what we can learn from Nietzsche is that matters of morality aren’t provable, and that we ought to be less pretentious and more willing to admit that we’re taking stabs in the dark when we talk about value, acting on our own agency/faith/choice. And so life is a supreme gamble where we know almost nothing and yet EVERYTHING is at stake. Sartre thinks that this should fill us all with dread. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard choose instead to laugh at the cosmic comedy of it all. It’s very Jack Sparrow if you ask me. And very Charles Williams.
August 7th, 2007 at 12:51 am
The difference between Nietzsche & Kierkegaard - at least as i see it - is that Kierkegaard’s laugh is one of joy, the kind of laugh that accompanies a jump off a big rock into the ocean (and i realize i’m stealing his imagery, sort of), and Nietzsche’s laugh is one of derision and scorn, a strong man laughing at a weak one.