Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Beyond Good and Evil - William Deaver Section 10, Installment 1

Beyond Good and Evil was written by Friedrich Nietzsche in 1886, a peripatetic philosopher. Nietzsche dives into Morals, virtues, and what good and bad essentially means. He not only tells us about what we have done right but how wrong our perspective can be. Much of the beginning of the book represents an accusatory tone of Nietzsche's viewpoint of other philosophers. However, this is no without reason. Nietzsche claims that this a great way to delve deeper into a both the minds of philosophers and their underlying philosophies. Afterward, Nietzsche moves his topic on to what free spirit, specifically when it comes to religion means. During this, it shows how Nietzsche believes in going against the grain, and not falling into a group and losing your identity. Morals is another topic that Nietzsche touches. He sees morality as something that is constantly changing and evolving, something that he claims that most philosophers do not consider. The time we live in shapes our perspective of morality as much as our core beliefs do. In the same chapter, Nietzsche states that most details are lost when we experience them. By only taking into account the big picture and miss the small fraction of that big picture. This is even more relevant in today’s modern world. If we travel to New York, we don’t stop and value the intricacies. Without such details, the City skyline can never exist as it is only just a byproduct. Later in the book, Nietzsche once again brings up morals and how emotions such as fear, guilt, and happiness enslave our actions and our views on morality. Philosophers were not the only thing Nietzsche was skeptical of, he also went after the scholars of his time. He criticized them for not having two of the most important functions for humans. These two functions were being creative and creating arts, and the other was being self-sustaining, and non-reliant. Finally, Nietzsche goes into Nobility. Nietzsche was very critical of Christianity for glorifying weakness. He believes that while weakness is a necessity for human nobility, it is something that must be exploited.

Nietzsche claims there are no universal laws, and that there is no ultimate answer to what is and is not moral. It is based off time, origin, society, and personal traits. Everybody is going to have their own version of the ultimate truth, and that is okay. It is expected for everybody to modify or skew other people’s perspectives to mend their own. This is ever truer when this perspective can be used to absolve the originator's actions. This was a viewpoint that was not commonly shared during this period, and I believe that this only strengthens Nietzsche’s perspective on what good and evil are. According to Nietzsche, you must have rough patches in life in order for the good to actually mean something. Character development, morality, and your ultimate truth are all shaped by these unfortunate events. Without them, life would be meaningless. It is clear that Nietzsche was critical of the philosophers of his time, that much is for certain.

Below is an attached video with more about Beyond Good and Evil:

2 comments:

  1. "If we travel to New York, we don’t stop and value the intricacies. Without such details, the City skyline can never exist as it is only just a byproduct." - not sure I see what Nietzschean point you're making here.

    "while weakness is a necessity for human nobility, it is something that must be exploited." - must NOT be, I'd say... and in what sense is it a necessity for nobility? At his best, Nietzsche represents the greatest "power" as self-restraint, not exploitation of the weak. Of course, he wasn't always at his best.

    "Everybody is going to have their own version of the ultimate truth, and that is okay." But is it, in a free and democratic society, if some exempt themselves from law and consensual morality and act harmfully towards others on that basis? If we really believe in "ultimate truth" we must also have the humility to admit our own fallibility. The raw assertion of power reflects a deficit of character, not its apotheosis. And again, Nietzsche at his best did not advocate the exercise of power against others but mostly against one's own weakness.

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  2. I enjoyed how you addressed that most details are lost when we experience them due to only focusing on the bigger picture rather than including finer details into the larger as a whole, this is something many do not consider, that behind every larger picture, finer, smaller details exist.

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