Much more life affirming than I expected. I wasn't always in the mood to read it, but well worth the effort.

Brilliant and challenging. I especially appreciated Nietzsche’s analysis of the Apollonian and Dionysian concepts. His influence on subsequent thinkers is clear and on full display in these texts. I feel Nietzsche levels an excellent critique of his own understanding of Buddhism - however this understanding misses the mark of the ultimate metaphysics and doctrine of, at least, most schools of Mahayana Buddhism. Nietzsche also is quick to viciously criticize Stocisim throughout and then criticize the helpless attitudes of the so called “sick” (not particularly meant in a physical sense here) who could most benefit from studying Stoic thinkers and become something closer to ‘well.’ Overall an excellent analysis and an attack on those who would deny the Will to Power, and the joy to be had in life, and in exercising one’s true nature - an assertion of Man’s inherent rights to a full life. The implications are many, and some may find them objectionable. I found a lot of value here, but I feel Nietzsche’s over reliance on the affirmation of the Ego, and his reliance on many assumptions that are not proven to my satisfaction in his arguments, do not stand up well to lived experience. Ultimately this exaltation of the Ego falls apart for anyone who has experienced an Ego death (even temporarily, for to never recover the Ego would be to go mad). It would be interesting to know what Nietzsche’s thoughts may have been on the matter after a strong dose of Dionysian DMT or psilocybin. Many of the weakest arguments are those against altruism, which are dealt with from an opposing angle by thinkers like Peter Kropotkin and more contemporaneously Richard Dawkins in ‘The Selfish Gene.’ Overall a great and provocative read that serves much food for thought.

I had to read in my senior Arts & Politics class. We studied it for far too long, maybe that's why I cringe at it?

Review for "The Genealogy of Morals," by Kenneth M. Shultz


To those whom accuse Nietzsche of being an anti-Semite:

I can see where this confusion is found, however, it does not seem Nietzsche's goal to make attacks strictly on the Jewish people. In the Genealogy of Morals, he in fact commends the Old Testament:

"I have the highest respect for that book. (the Old Testament) I find in it great men, a heroic landscape, and one of the rarest things on earth, the naivete of a strong heart." (pp. 281)

This is not to say that Nietzsche holds no contempt for the modern Jewish people. Nietzsche finds pleasure in transforming the unquestioned opaque truths (eventually challenging truth itself) into papery translucent facades. In his time, religious dogma was a primary source of unquestioned opaque truth (while still a source today, it is more readily question by many), making Judaism (as well as Christianity) his most common recurring motif. Consequently, he has been scrutinized as an anti-Semite.

In the third essays, however, Nietzsche is as critical and destructive to himself as he had previously been to religious dogma. This is most apparent in his criticism of the modern scholar and modern philosopher with respect to the ascetic idea (the end of the third essay). As this third essay unravels, Nietzsche begins to turn on himself (it is unclear as to if the turn is intentional or not) and then abruptly changes his focus to the wretched unoriginal historian (chapter XXVI). Soon after, he offers his final conclusions and the reader is left with a feeling that the author, once a predatory hawk, has all along been his own prey, a lamb.

Regardless of its peculiar idiosyncratic hypocrisies and contradictions, the work is profound and should be read, if at all, by a readied mind. When approaching this text, do so without presumption and be prepared to accept uncomfortable and at times audacious claims (if at least for the sake of argument); if you cannot do so, and still decide to read the material, you will be wasting you time.

My favorite translation of the Genealogy of Morals.

I liked The Birth of Tragedy better than the Genealogy of Morals. I'm not comfortable with Nietzsche's apparent love of cruelty. And I don't know if there's any historical figures who really embodied the values advanced by Nietzsche. However, Nietzsche diagnoses brilliantly the crisis of Modernity.

Before he was a controversial philosopher, he was a philologist. The Birth of Tragedy shatters the preconceptions of our modern views on the development of ethics. Many accuse him of anti-semitism (debatable) and mysoginistic idiocies (true), and much of his work has been reduced to aphorisms, but like other artists whose personal lives are a complete shambles, he proved capable of producing great ideas within the scope of his work.

Too bad Nietzche didn't have a chance to chill out more.

What a wild ride it's been! You can't not admire the attacks on Socrates, after all, he is thought to be so important according to history, we divide classic philosophy into two categories, pre-socratic and everything that came after that. Surely, Plato had a plan when writing the dialogues of Socrates. Just as the Pauline New Testament was no accident, so the Platonic dialogues. Since Nietzsche's main target here is The Church, he simply must go after Platonic ideals and Socrates' dialectic as possible, nay probable, reasons for the state of things as we see them in the Institution.

The state of things here in the U.S. would utterly disgust Nietzsche. Words have meaning to the masses only as corporations ascribe meaning to them. Sexuality and true Freedom are in such disarray that people are ultimately afraid of the concept of an objective truth. We hear through the channels that casual sexual encounters are rampant, yet most of us are scared as ever to have a healthy sex life. Most of us choose a TV show far before we ever consider picking up a book, much less going down rabbit trails of Indo-European philology. That's the problem. We are trapped inside a crystal palace of language that means very little to our spirit. Language has become a technology to the modern man, not a map that leads backwards, and in this spirit of tool-wielding, "the history of language is the history of a process of abbreviation." And so have we backed ourselves into a corner. But instead of teaching Latin and the classics, we teach that language is always subjective, that some words might offend others, nay whole ideas and philosophies may offend others, so it's best to not philosophize at all.

"Be ashamed of your heritage, the one that had the will to power" is what I hear from the ones that don't want anyone to suffer. Life is the will to power, and I will not be ashamed to be alive.

I have been thinking of reading Nietzsche especially because a philosopher poet from India has often been linked to him. I wanted to know how the ideas of Nietsche could have influenced this very much orthodox Muslim from South Asia. So far I have found nothing of the sort that would indicate a positive influence, I feel more like Iqbal's mind may have had a narcissistic (not individual but community narcissism) reflection on encountering Existentialist thought.

Geneology of Morals: As an evolutionary biology student, I find it interesting that Nietzsche is influenced or has a notion of evolution. Although it has been interpreted as Lamarckian I read it as a better interpretations than many non-biologists of even the 20th century. What he is talking about is a cultivational and cultural influence, which can very well be true in a sense. If we forgive him for not being accurate to the essence of Dawinian idea, he is not entirely wrong. His book seemed to me like a natural followup of the theory of evolution. I enjoyed it like all the other Nietsche books I have read.

I would like to thank Dr. Rupp for ruining my 2007 Christmas break by luring me toward Friedrich Nietzsche. Of course I say this jokingly and with much admiration for Dr. Rupp. I spent my 2007 break pouring myself over this book only to discover it is truly a book that one should digest in small bites. To ingest too quickly is to miss the flavor and on some days almost choke. Individual sentences are touching themselves and overall the mind of Nietzsche is mysterious.

This is a very thought-provoking book. Nietzsche is indispensable for anyone interested in virtue theory.