I found that understanding Nietzsche is as hard as spelling or pronouncing his name. Professor Jill, thank you so much for that lecture because I understand him… or at least kind of. Do I agree with Nietzsche though? WELL given my religious beliefs are Christians and the fact that Nietzsche does criticize religion and takes a rather anti-god stance I say my personal feelings are quite negative for him.
What I do admire Nietzsche for is his diversity. Unlike most essayists who are very linear in their approach and suggest that there is only one truth, Nietzsche’s idea of multiple truths is something I quite admire. It sure is confusing, but I like how he at least is able to embrace the fact there are multiple truths and multiple ways of doing things and that morality changes in time. Unlike Plato’s rather stagnant one truth, Nietzsche’s multiple truths that change seems much more flexible.
Slave and noble morality, this I have to say is something I do agree upon with Nietzsche. His examples are extraordinarily convincing and the willingness of Nietzsche to look beyond what makes good, bad and evil. His combination of history, literary analysis and philosophy blend together to create a very interesting and very convincing argument. Revolting (as in slaves revolting) humans will call their masters, evil, an intensification of bad and invert the Nobles morality. We see this in the Israelites, when they leave Egypt and we see it in the rise of Nazi Germany (jewish bankers were in power, flipped over by working class).
What I don’t like about Nietzsche… is his rather inherent dislike for a stagnant good. As much as I find his argument convincing, I can’t keep thinking how appealing it is for the idea of a common good, a form of good acceptable to all humans… The problem being is that Nietzsche would call me silly and scared of knowing myself… Which might be the case because as a human, I’m quite aware that I can do great evil or great good… though Nietzsche would say this is depending on the morality of the current times.
Sincerely,
Vincent
This is a really interesting post, I like how you’ve pointed out Nietzsche’s “inherent dislike for a stagnant good”. It almost seems counter- intuitive that Nietzsche believes that society is better served by us rejecting “stagnant good”. It seems Nietzsche is in opposition to Plato in the sense that plato is in favour of emotional detachment while Nietzsche believes in embracing ourselves in totality. It kind of reminds me of how Euripides depicts people as we are while Sophocles depicts humans as they should be.