This was the book! The essence of dozens of books. I was familiar with Nietzsche from a distance, but this was my first close encounter with this great thinker, and of course, it was both terrifying and delightful.

When entering Nietzsche's thought, be prepared to give up all your precious possessions, including the seemingly certain Cartesian certainties or the apparently solid Kantian moral frameworks.

But in the end, the gift that, in return, you receive from this "free man" is the power and the pain, these two driving forces of life.

Nietzsche's ideas challenge our most fundamental beliefs and force us to question everything we hold dear. His writing is both profound and provocative, and it has the ability to inspire and transform us.

Reading Nietzsche is not for the faint of heart, but for those who are willing to take the risk and explore the depths of human nature and existence, it can be a life-changing experience.

Whether you agree or disagree with his ideas, Nietzsche's work is an important contribution to the history of philosophy and a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the human condition.

In the tepid Ottawa Valley Spring of 1967, I completed reading William Barrett’s Irrational Man. I was engaged in studying for the SATs, to the extent that they could be studied for. However, all that studying left me entirely unprepared for their inexplicable logic. It was a sort of logic that seemed tailor-made for an Aspie like me.

I managed to ace them, despite being totally unprepared for something that ultimately turned out to be right up my alley.

My high school guidance counselor labeled me as one smart guy. Oh, indeed I had the smarts. But these smarts were completely unconnected to my emotions. My friends considered me bright but saw right through me. They wanted me to attempt their extroverted Pretzel Logic.

The existentialists also utilized Pretzel Logic. Barrett had me tied up in interior pretzels, which were entirely unconnected to my friends’ SOCIAL PRETZELS! My friends referred to it as a Win/Win Game. I only engaged in games through books. Go figure.

There I was, GONE. I thought one made friends by liking some and refusing to befriend others, just like on Goodreads. Remember that sixties soap, Another World? That’s where I lived, and still do. Another World Made By Books. Being Aspie, I avoided the Real World.

Irrational Man was my First Pick for reading in 1967. It led me to read ALL the philosophers Barrett mentioned.

Including Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil.

There I was, gone. I couldn’t perceive that that book was pointing me towards a forthcoming Reality, not just a Theory.

But I know now.

It’s EVERYWHERE!

There is now no distinct goodness nor badness.

Guess what, Friends?

Here we ALL are, now, GONE.

GONE, GONE, GONE BEYOND -

ANY REDEEMABLE KINDA WISDOM!!

I can see some merits in Nietzsche's writing. For instance, his exploration of the megalomania within organised religion and how people use piety for their own purposes is quite thought-provoking. His insights into vice and virtue, as well as the detriments of capitalism, also have value. The idea of the erasure of the human condition under the current management system is useful and meaningful.

However, Nietzsche is a raging misogynist. He has countless diatribes about the supposed faults of the human condition and claims that women should not engage in intellectual discussions with men. He even uses caps lock in a similar, reckless way as Trump, abruptly and in sentences where it makes little sense. What's more, he has a sneaky catch-all for those who disagree with him, which some reviewers on this page have also utilised, much to my disappointment. If you disagree, he simply dismisses you as too dumb to understand. This isn't just a caveat - it's blatant sexism disguised as philosophy.

Women are not delicate flowers who need to avoid 'sullying' themselves by getting involved in law, politics, and preaching. They are actual human beings with their own thoughts, opinions, and the capacity to govern, create, and institute law. The fact that Nietzsche was divorced multiple times in his lifetime is not lost on me. It's almost a wonder that anyone agreed to marry him in the first place. By virtue of biology, there should be no bar to women working in public services. I'm tired of people justifying him as incredibly intelligent when, in reality, his good ideas are buried in a mire of bias.

Fortunately, later theories like queer theory and radical feminist theory offer a much better perspective from which to view these areas. I would much rather read a book about them and the deconstruction of the system that Nietzsche wrote about from a position of power than this drivel.

TDLR: Hating women and thinking them inferior doesn't make you smart, it just makes you annoying.

There are three kinds of non-conformists: skeptics, contrarians, and independent thinkers. Then there is Nietzsche.

Nietzsche was like a philosophical sledgehammer. He didn't just undermine traditional European moral paradigms and their Christian roots; he went after the entire structure of religious morality and philosophical moral theory that took thousands of years and countless thinkers to develop and solidify. Right from the start of his work, Nietzsche attacked all "philosophical dogmatizing," seeing it as just the childish high-mindedness of a beginner. In his view, philosophy was just an attempt by those good with words to get everyone to adopt their moral views. No matter how proud philosophers were of their clarity, originality, and reasoning ability, the moral structures they made were always derivative, coming from "folk superstitions," "wordplay," or "a bold generalization from very limited, personal, human facts." Philosophers mostly just repackaged old ideas, and he pointed to the "strange resemblance of Indian, Greek, and German philosophizing" as proof.

Underneath Nietzsche's attack on philosophy was an iconoclastic temperament and spirit, the disdain of a great genius for the ordinary way, and a hidden ambition to replace his predecessors as the top philosopher in the Western tradition. He took aim at all the big names in Western philosophy: Kant, Spinoza, Plato, Socrates, Schopenhauer, Carlyle, Augustine, Mill, Bentham, the Stoics, and more. No one, no matter how famous, and no idea, no matter how widely accepted, was safe from his critical eye. This independence of thought is the main benefit of reading his work.

Since Nietzsche was more focused on tearing down old structures, it's hard to see a clear philosophy that he wanted to put in their place. He only gave value prescriptions in a scattered way throughout his work. So scholars and readers are still arguing about what his suggestions really meant. I can only give my own interpretations that I've gathered from the essence and words of his work. First, be careful of all forms of dogma, which are just the instincts of the masses. And since the masses are often unthinking and unintelligent, a wise person should avoid being caught up in their morality. Second, only listen carefully to people who speak without anger, because although angry people may seem morally better, they are actually more common, less important, and less truthful than those who talk about moral issues in a neutral tone.

Third, create and follow your own unique moral code that will strengthen your spirit and let you achieve transcendence. Happiness and virtue can't be used as arguments. All the idealists who rhapsodize about goodness, truth, beauty, and other nice-sounding words are just deluded wishful thinkers. They ignore the fact that bad people can also be happy and good people can be unhappy. The strength of a person's spirit doesn't lie in their virtue or happiness, but in their ability to accept the truth. Weaker spirits want the truth to be watered down, disguised, sweetened, muted, or falsified. Stronger spirits accept the cold, unrestrained truth no matter how unpleasant it is. Harshness provides better conditions for the development of a strong, independent spirit. Independence is a worthy goal to strive for, not to be dependent on the pity of friends or strangers.

Fourth, hierarchy is a fact of life, so morality must be applied to individuals in a hierarchical way. It's foolish to demand that everyone follow a universal standard of morality. "What nourishes or refreshes a higher type of person must be almost poison to a very different and inferior type. The virtues of an ordinary person might be vices and weaknesses in a philosopher." So the superior man, or the Übermenschen, should try to rise above morality, reject the ethic of sacrifice and devotion to others, and create a higher morality based on the Greco-Roman virtues of resourcefulness, ruthlessness, and rapacity.

This is where many people, even those who are impressed with Nietzsche's analysis of philosophy and morality, start to have problems. They can't accept that this brilliant and original thinker, whom they have just begun to admire, is now taking his arguments to their logical conclusion and advocating a morality based on "harshness, violence, enslavement, danger on the street and in the heart, seclusion, stoicism, the art of the tempter, and every kind of devilry." People start to act like ostriches, burying their heads in the sand. A common refrain is: "He is being misinterpreted and misrepresented." But can it be that Nietzsche is really advocating for cruelty, tyranny, and enslavement? Well, yes, it can be. In his own words: "everything evil, frightful, tyrannical, predatory, and snake-like about humans serves to heighten the species." But if you read the whole book carefully, you'll see that Nietzsche isn't just describing - he's prescribing. The fact that people refuse to accept this reality shows Nietzsche's point about the rarity of free and independent spirits.

One of the ironies of reading the Oxford Classics edition is that the author criticizes Nietzsche for his "misogynistic" views in the introduction. Nietzsche's observations must have gone over the author's head because he is using herd morality and accepted dogmas to criticize Nietzsche for having socially unacceptable views. And this is one of the reasons why Nietzsche, despite his best and most creative efforts, has and will continue to fail in changing accepted ideas about morality. They are too deeply ingrained in our psyches to overcome. As he correctly saw, only a few rare people, most of whom are already inclined to wickedness and harshness, will be ready to accept his conclusions. The rest of humanity will keep on praising compassion and kindness as the highest virtues, and thank goodness for that.

Actual Rating: 2.5 Stars
Nietzsche has a very dense writing style which made reading this book really difficult. However, it was mostly worth it.

Part One - On the Prejudices of Philosophers
I enjoyed reading his thoughts on freedom of will. But nothing else made sense and seemed like he was just rambling to fill up page space. Maybe I failed to understand. The topics discussed failed to connect in my brain and I wasn't a fan of this part. But this doesn't mean it was objectively bad. The main theme was where Nietzsche spoke of philosophers and what drives them and I couldn't have been more bored. There were some treasures in that vomit of words, but overall I didn't enjoy this part.

Part Two - The Free Spirit
For the most part, I can understand the points he's trying to get across, but they just don't matter to me. He's speaking of the continued theme of a new age of philosophers and something about free spirits, but I don't feel a connection to any of it. Despite what I just stated, there were some really enjoyable sections.

Part Three - The Religious Nature
This part was increasingly more enjoyable than the first two. Mainly because I do care about what he discussed in this section. I found his thoughts on religion and its relevancy in our new modern world to be a very interesting concept and definitely worth paying attention to. I was very interested and loved this section.

Part Four - Maxims and Interludes
This felt like a breath of fresh air, with the short sections compared to the page-long ramblings of the previous sections. This was my favorite part by far. If the entire book had explicitly stated his thoughts as simply as he did here, then it would've been a masterpiece. However, the majority of his statements regarding women were gross.

Part Five - On the Natural History of Morals
I liked this section for the most part. It wasn't particularly memorable, so I'm struggling to think of things to say. Obviously, it wasn't breathtaking if I'm not even sure how I feel about it a few days after reading. In this part, he talks about the nature of morals while incorporating Christianity into it. I enjoyed that, though at some parts he was a bit incomprehensible.

Part Six - We Scholars
General summary: Philosophers are really really cool and special and gifted and cool. Safe to say I didn't really like this section. It just didn't interest me much. His writing was so dense that I genuinely don't even know what he was talking about.

Part Seven - Our Virtues
This was a very enjoyable section! He was a lot more comprehensible and I was interested in the topic of virtues and vices and other similar concepts he vaguely mentioned. He connects Christianity and religion to virtues and I think how he did this was interesting and really drew me in. Nietzsche's beliefs on the topic of God and Christianity are single-handedly saving this book for me. I also love when he talks about self-destruction. However, his absurdly misogynistic views on women are really gross.

Part Eight - People and Fatherlands
Boring.

Part Nine - What is Noble?
Probably my favorite section (Maxims and Interludes at a very close second)!!! As is stated in the title of this part, it discusses the themes of what makes a person noble and the nature of the noble soul. It's hard for me to paraphrase here what he said but it was one of the most beautiful pieces of literature I've read and I had not expected it at all. Nietzsche, I'm sorry for ever doubting you!!!

From High Mountains: Epode
Not really sure what the point of this was, but I liked it.

General Thoughts:
This book gave me whiplash from "this book is HORRIBLE" to "this book is AMAZING" over and over again. In the end, I gotta say it's worth reading if you're interested in Nietzsche, but it's not an enjoyable read and was really hard to get through at some points. However, he does make up for it at the end with an absolute masterpiece of philosophy. He's misogynistic and dense but if you can look past that, this might be a nice read for you.

4.0 stars.

It has been an incredibly long time since I last delved into this work (nearly 20 years to be precise), and as a result, my memory of the subject matter is rather hazy. This book has found its way onto my list of must-reads in the near future.

Now, without delving too deeply into the specific merits of Nietzsche's arguments, I do vividly recall that this was a truly fascinating philosophical discussion. It presented some highly interesting ideas regarding the basis and nature of morality.

Nietzsche's work had the remarkable ability to look at many of our long-held preconceived ideas from an entirely new perspective. It forced readers to question and reevaluate their deeply ingrained beliefs about what is right and wrong, good and bad.

This fresh examination of morality was both thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating, leaving a lasting impression on me. I am eager to revisit this work and gain a more in-depth understanding of Nietzsche's profound insights.

The passage that truly encapsulated this book for me was "Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood." Indeed, right there. It's precisely what irks me about a great deal of philosophy - I simply desire people to be capable of writing clearly and honestly about their actual intentions. Nietzsche's language is so convoluted and impenetrable (and it's evident that this is deliberate), making it exasperating to read. There's definitely a hint of the emperor's new clothes regarding this book.

And don't even get me started on his views about women: "nothing is more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth - her great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty." Oh dear, it's too late, I can't halt now: "When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a certain virility of taste...".

"Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would not have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the secondary role."

I thought Erasmus's views were dreadful, but he lived four hundred years before Nietzsche. I had hoped that by the late nineteenth century, 'deep thinkers' might have become more enlightened. Evidently not.

Üstat challenges us with a new inquiry not based on the paradigm on which morality is founded with the well-known facts, but with the other paradigm. In other words, it leads us to another philosophy in the future. This new exploration opens up a vast realm of possibilities and forces us to reexamine our existing beliefs and assumptions. It makes us question the very nature of morality and its underlying principles. By delving into this alternative paradigm, we are exposed to different perspectives and ideas that can potentially reshape our understanding of the world. It is a journey that invites us to think beyond the boundaries of the familiar and embrace the unknown, with the hope of uncovering new insights and truths.

Nietzsche is to the atheist what Charles Spurgeon was to Christian preachers. He has a unique and creative way of expressing himself, and this book is filled with thought-provoking one-liners. He reminds me of a preacher in that he makes extreme statements with absolute confidence, yet fails to provide substantial backing or delve into great depth.

To me, this book doesn't seem so much about transcending good and evil as it does about justifying evil. Figures like Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, who rejected the "slave" morality and pursued power, might have felt virtuous and good about themselves. If power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, I got the impression that in Nietzsche's mind, this absolute corruption is the highest goal for humanity, as power justifies everything!

If I'm not completely misinterpreting his words (which I may be), then what a repulsive philosophy it is, and how terrifying it is that it resonates with some people! But I suppose if "God is dead" and mankind and the universe are simply the result of blind, unguided processes, then perhaps what Nietzsche presents here follows logically.

We witnessed Nietzsche's philosophy played out to its fullest during World War II. Hitler adored Nietzsche's writings, and in fact, most of Germany embraced his philosophy as a way of life (watch the documentary "Nietzsche and the Nazis" by Stephen Hicks). The war-loving Nietzsche, had he lived to see it, would have seen these enlightened, Nazi free-spirits killing the weak and surely would have felt proud.

And wow, how could women like this guy? His chapter on women was truly something else. According to this beloved philosopher, if you're a woman, you can't think and should never even be allowed to try. Your only purpose as the weaker vessel is to have babies, and that's it!

There are people who have spirit in an inevitable way. They may turn and twist as they please, and hold their hands in front of their betraying eyes (– as if the hand were not a betrayer! –): eventually, it always comes out that they have something that they hide, namely spirit. One of the subtlest means to deceive for as long as possible and to successfully pretend to be dumber than one is – which in common life is often as desirable as an umbrella – is called enthusiasm.

This quote is of course only an excerpt from Nietzsche's mature and rich thought world, but in my opinion, it is a testimony to his profound insights regarding human psychology, as they are expressed in "Beyond Good and Evil". It is amazing! One can hardly find words that do justice to his writings. I have read so many books by sociologists and psychologists, and none of them comes close to Nietzsche's knowledge of human nature, for Nietzsche cannot be classified, he is a universal genius. Easily, he recognized the connections of our instincts and motives and how we like to deceive ourselves when we determine the real impulses for our actions.

The work is a further collection of Nietzsche's aphorisms, with which one can go along or not, but which all offer a mature abundance of intellectual content. Seldom has a thinker been able to easily overthrow my long-held opinions. My moral ideas and beliefs have never been put to the test like this, for I often had to realize that Nietzsche's criticism, which is by no means presented negatively but productively, hits the mark, even though I cannot agree with him in all respects. However, I would be a bad student if I could only agree.

The great inspirations that I have drawn from his works have changed me strongly, and if that is not the meaning of all literature, namely to further develop the spirit and personality, to push them to new heights, where one becomes even more lonely because one gets closer to the unpleasant truths that one is not allowed to express in public without being branded as immoral, arrogant filth, then I don't know what else literature should aim for. The modern human reads, like he does almost everything, only to intoxicate himself, to amuse himself, and consequently he also petrifies in that regard.

I have hardly said anything about the content, I leave that to others, I have only emphasized what is important to me.

“He who despises himself still nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.”

Ah, the book is as dry as it is deep!

Nietzsche is indeed a profound thinker. However, his writing style is truly insufferable. The never-ending sentences are filled with difficult words, untranslated Latin phrases, and names that one hardly knows. What is the purpose of all this? One can explain even the most complicated ideas in a much simpler way. Unsurprisingly, I had to rely on Google for almost every chapter. It reminded me of my nightmare when reading Charles Dickens.

Is the book worth the effort? No. In the 19th century, Nietzsche's ideas were fresh and provocative. In this book, he heavily criticizes Christianity's moral principles and views them as “herd-serving.” He rejects the argument of truth (or facts) and proclaims that humans are motivated only by one thing, which he named “the will to power.” To him, we, like other lively organisms, aim to assert ourselves to survive and reproduce. Even our selfless acts are just that.

Such concepts, at least to me, were not entirely unheard of. The Western world, perhaps unknowingly, has already accepted many of his ideas as norms. The only curious thing, really, is Nietzsche's blatant sexism. Who hurt him?

“But she does not want truth: what is truth to a woman? From the very first, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, inimical to a woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her supreme concern is appearance and beauty.”

It seems that Nietzsche had some rather extreme views about women. His statement贬低女性的言论 is not only unfair but also reflects a certain narrow-mindedness. However, we should also view his ideas in the context of his time. Maybe there were some factors that influenced his perception of women. Nevertheless, we cannot simply accept his sexist views. We should strive to understand and evaluate his ideas objectively, while also being critical of the parts that are unjust or inaccurate.

Why exactly should I strive to be kind and not cruel? Why am I taught to be fair and not selfish throughout my life? Why should I subscribe to equal rights, non-discrimination, egalitarianism, and freedom of speech?

Nietzsche contends that the virtues and moral imperatives mentioned above are merely legacies, the result of Darwinian qualities (though he doesn't use this term) that have ensured the survival and prosperity of the "issuing" authority. Good and evil, the salvation of the soul, and growth have nothing to do with it. As social structures change, so does the concept of morality. This is where his ingenious treatise on master and slave morality comes in.

Under "feudal" conditions, it is the rulers who determine the conception of "good" and morality. The noble in ancient Greece called themselves "we truthful ones," believing that common people are liars, insignificant, and cowards. It's obvious that moral value designations were first applied to men and only later to actions. The nobleman regards himself as the determiner of values, not requiring approval, and alone passes judgment. Regarding slave morality, Nietzsche says that if the abused and oppressed were allowed to moralize, a pessimistic suspicion about the entire human situation would likely be expressed, perhaps a condemnation of man and his situation. The qualities that alleviate the suffering of the oppressed, such as sympathy, kindness, and patience, are highly regarded here as they are the most useful means of supporting the burden of existence.

In essence, it is this "slave morality," which emerged due to certain socio-economic conditions that no longer exist today, that has prevailed and tells me to be kind and fair, not cruel. Why has it prevailed? According to Nietzsche, it has been propped up by the Church for its own reasons, which are not the subject of this review.

Under this argument, there can be no intrinsic value attached to being "kind" or "equitable." It is an arbitrary signifier, devoid of inherent "good or evil," simply a measure of utility imposed by the establishment to normalize expected intragroup behavior based on the prevailing social and cultural conditions.

The idea that morality is a tool for managing expectations is intriguing. In any subject-object interaction, the qualitative determination of an action in terms of "good and evil" is not an objective phenomenon but an arbitrarily shared agreement between the two entities. For example, the Bible condones slavery, and in the story of the Unforgiving Slave, there is much debate about forgiveness, but neither the slave nor the master seems concerned about the institution of slavery itself.

The ethical quandary arises when there is a mismatch between subject-object expectations. So, how many times should one forgive? 7? 77? Or not at all? What determines this decision?

Nietzsche negates the existence of a universal morality, arguing that the demand for one morality for all is detrimental to the higher man. Instead, he advocates for a person-specific morality informed by the "power to will," recognizing that within a group, we are not all equal. A circular hierarchy of power is established where everyone surrenders their will to someone else and has power over someone else.

Therefore, a "sympathetic action" (i.e., a moral action) is not an independent, objective, and universal phenomenon but must be derived from the dynamics of the specific subject-object agreement from which it emerges. In essence, a "higher excellence individual" is the originator of his own "personalized" morality, which will constantly adapt and evolve according to the specificity of the recipient.

The above process is only relevant to higher excellence individuals, such as the "superman," who do not follow the slave mentality. And it is by no means a pain-free process. Nietzsche argues that suffering is an essential prerequisite for the cultivation of human excellence. If an individual internalizes the norm that suffering must be alleviated, all energy is wasted in self-pity and lament instead of being used to "create."

Nietzsche's insistence on suffering may be due to his conception of a human being as being constituted by non-conscious facts that determine his actions. He reverses the Cartesian "I am therefore I think" to "I think, therefore I am," with an epihenomenological explanation of the occurrence of thoughts. Since actions are caused by the unconscious will, it is not possible to resolve a conflict against oneself.

So far, this may all seem like a lot of waffle. But what is the practical significance? I have come to the realization that I have suffered throughout my life, with the goal of alleviating that suffering. Now, I am free because I accept that suffering is okay. It is a non-balancing equation that I cannot neutralize. I will no longer waste energy on suppression tactics but will instead harness it and make it work for me.

I will no longer measure my worth according to accepted dogma and penalize myself if I feel I fall short. Morality is arbitrary, and there is no objective good and evil. I will make my own morality. It is okay to take the path less traveled and not subscribe to "slave morality." If there is subject-object disagreement, it is possible that I am right and you are wrong.

My life is determined by the "will of power." I accept that I will hurt people and that people will hurt me, despite my best efforts. Even when I think I am working for the "greater good," someone may be negatively affected. This is okay. It is a fallacy to strive for perfection in not hurting others.

Finally, the most important point is that I don't need to hate myself. Instead of wasting energy on penitence and self-flagellation, I need to find my own "little community." I would rather sin with a group of five than suffer in isolation among millions. If I failed you, it means we didn't have "subject-object" agreement. I don't want to give up my morality for you, and I don't want you to give up your morality for me. I want us to share a morality.

Is this a drunken review? Only you can decide.