7/9/14 This is the first post about Nietzsche’s seminal 1886 work, Beyond Good and Evil. His aim was to present a more systematic form of the ideas, the spirit, of its immediate predecessor from 1885, the lyrical Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Right away, it is important to note that when Nietzsche used the word “spirit,” he used it in a much different way than we commonly do, especially contemporary theists. Instead of referring to a religious essence, Nietzsche uses “spirit” to refer to either a positive or negative quality of character, as in a “very free spirit,” unencumbered by the Christianity-driven corruption of the noble self. He certainly does NOT refer to “spirit” in the way that religious authors have for millennia. This distinction is important because we will hear him refer to examples and descriptions of the “good” spirit and the “bad” or “corrupted” spirit, especially as they refer to Europeans overall and to Germans specifically. (I am going to assume that the followers of GDM are sophisticated enough to understand the historical context that colors his Euro-Centrism, and that I need not explain it.) Further, in the preface to Beyond Good and Evil, FN writes “…—for Christianity is Platonism for ‘the people’—…” I take this to refer to two crucial themes present not only in this text, but in much of Nietzsche’s work overall: 1) We can’t ignore the sarcasm here, and Nietzsche could be brutally, if still subtly, sarcastic. Make no mistake, Nietzsche was for the aristocracy, not a lover of democracy. This may seem offensive to our sensibilities today, and I admit that I myself have a difficult time often reconciling my admiration and love for his brand of atheism with his political stance. Then again, he felt that ALL modern (i.e. post-industrial revolution) political machinations were an outgrowth of a cheapening of the spirit represented by democratic uprisings. That is, all political doings were beneath those possessing the good spirit, those of whom Zarathustra was the ultimate example, of unique individuals who served as an example of self-actualization and self-determination. So, we can say that his preference for the aristocracy was—perhaps—not an organic disdain for those who have not, but rather he saw as a social NEED the examples of aristocratic brilliance who are the only hope for the preservation of the good spirit, examples for the rest of us. He equated the dominance of Christianity with the eventual spread of more democratic principles across Europe and beyond. Is this to say that he was anti-Enlightenment? No, I do not think so. After all, the Enlightenment represented, among other things, the systematic rejection of religious “truth,” and he certainly was a proponent of that. His views on science will be discussed at another time. 2) When referring to Platonism, we can identify Plato’s Theory of Forms as the primary “offender” for FN in his scathing equation above. Specifically, Plato’s forms were seen as ideals, “perfect,” and that the terrestrial shapes that such forms took were inferior copies. This system was significantly adopted by the Catholic Church, as these “perfect” forms were taken to be of God’s creation, and thus everything here on Earth was simply an inferior version of the Godly form. (How that resolves with the idea that “god doesn’t make mistakes” in his creation of us as humans I do not see at this time.) The next post will concern a bit of history of Nietzsche’s place in Existential philosophy, as well as begin the examination of the main body of Beyond Good and Evil. CC
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 06:35:22 +0000
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