These works were Nietzsche's first and even though he hadn't hit his stride yet, it's full of Nietzsche insight, humor, clarity, and vigor!

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.

This review is only for The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music, which forms the first half of this book. The second half is The Genealogy of Morals, which I will put off reading for the time being.

Friedrich Nietzsche is like the butcher who rests his heavy thumb on the scales as he weighs his meat. In Greek tragedy, he detects two strains, the Apollonian, which is all light and reason, and the Dionysiac, which is more concerned with the terror, mystery and immanence of life. When he weighs the Dionysiac elements, Nietzsche positively leans on the scale. This results in some strange judgments, particularly when he attacks Euripides and Socrates as corrupters of the tradition perfected by Aeschylus and Sophocles and the old Greek religion.

The author hails recent developments (in his day) in Germany, with Kant, Schopenhauer, and especially Wagner. What we know and Nietzsche did not was that his Dionysiac love fest ended in National Socialism and the horrors of World War II. His patent hatred of French and Italian art and culture gives his philosophy a purely intramural reach -- one which had later repercussions in the century to follow.

My own feeling is that the Apollonian and Dionysiac both represent different attitudes toward life which are equally valid and perhaps necessary. If by his emphasis on Wagner's Liebestod, Nietzsche deprived himself of the joys of Cosi Fan Tutte and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and only hurt his own argument. Life contains both light and darkness, in roughly equal measure.

On the other hand, I think Nietzsche created a fascinating dichotomy that has multiple uses that we have only begun to see in criticism and even  politics.

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 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.

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.

I checked this out at the public library in Spring Hill, TN. The Birth of Tragedy was interesting but difficult to understand because I'm not familiar enough with Greek tragedy, as Nietzsche obviously was. This kind of stuff always leads me to read stuff that the writer talks about. Nietzsche outlines how Greek literature went through a change, from "alpha" to "nerdy." It would be interesting to deep dive into that literature and witness that change for myself. The Genealogy of Morals, my favorite of the two books in this volume, is quite dark. It outlines a change similar to that of the Greeks, when humans developed morality. It would be more difficult to do a deep dive into this; one would have to use their imagination.

Nietzsche is a life changing author.
His writing is of mind altering substance.
I can't explain to you very much in this small space, you need to read it for yourself, I promise.

I actually didn't read this specific book, I read The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals separately, but they are both very important pieces of philosophy.

Read or die.

Next fall's read

I enjoyed the first book better as its focus is on Greek gods and philosophers. The second book was ok but focused too much on Nitetzsche dislike of his contemporaries and culture.

Read these in high school and must read them again soon.

I have two different engish editions for the Birth of tragedy + 1 german edition.