I was never a fan of reading philosophical texts, and On the Genealogy of Morals was no exception. It’s not that I find philosophy boring, but I prefer reading novels like Frankenstein over Plato’s Republic or Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality. On the Genealogy of Morals wasn’t extraordinarily bad compared to previous philosophical texts I’ve read as part of the Arts One curriculum, but I still had to force myself to read the entire 335 pages of the text.

Nietzsche isn’t as easy to understand as Rousseau, who makes a rather straightforward argument. Nietzsche likes to ramble, and I suspect he knows he can be rather hard to follow. He asks a number of times, “Am I understood?” Having said that, I was able to get the main idea he was trying to make in every essay. The core argument he is trying to give is, I think, that humans create good and evil, as well as determine the divine. He devotes a part of his text talking about how ancestors become deified as a group becomes more powerful, and then this group will believe that they owe their ancestors their power through their ancestor’s protection and governance from above. It’s interesting to see how “good” and “evil”, which we normally believe to have been present as long as humans existed, are actually creations of our perceptions. Perhaps there is no good and evil, as we once believed. Nietzsche credits the origin of good to be what the nobility in past times termed “good” and evil to what the plebeians considered “bad”, which may, in fact, be the “good” in the eyes of the nobility. That’s what stands out in my memory, despite having read the entire text.

One of the first impressions I had of this philosophical text when I first flipped through it was: This is going to be a philosophical text where the author is going to go on and on about how great he is. I noticed how towards the end the essays were titled Why I write such good books, Why I am so clever, and Why I am a destiny. This is rather a vain thing to write! Most philosophers feel that way, but all the philosophers that I’ve heard about- Plato, Rousseau, Hobbes, Aristotle- wouldn’t actually use that as the title of an essay. Nietzsche shows contempt towards the reader in general. Sometimes I wonder if his asking, “Am I understood?” is actually a case of him demanding the reader if he is keeping up with the arguments Nietzsche is presenting, or if Nietzsche acknowledges how difficult it is to follow his writings.

I also have to make one contradiction to Nietzsche. He writes on page 263, “I have been told that it is impossible to put down one of my books- that I even disturb nightly rest.” Truth is, I found it very easy to put down one of his books (aka. On the Genealogy of Morals), and I even slept well after reading it for a few hours every evening.

How do I begin to talk about this book? Well, so far, it’s the only book in ArtsOne that has made me physically angry. Just reading this text made my blood boil. I remember one time that I asked Siri on my cousin’s iPhone what the meaning of life was, and her response was, “Nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach you.” Boy… if this text has anything to do with the meaning of life, then I feel like we’re all screwed.

To start off, I completely condemn and cannot begin to appreciate the total and utter ludicracy regarding his opinion on Jewish people. Truthfully, any individual who presents such blatantly biased, horrific views of others offers nothing to me. Stating that the Jewish people created a complete reversal of morals is utterly ridiculous. How on Earth can anyone associate the noble, wealthy, selfish aristocrats with any good qualities? If that is true morality, then life is a sham.

I swear, I almost ripped a page out of the book when he started saying that Christianity was formed from hatred… Normally, I don’t care what people have to say about my religion,  to each their own, right? But this made me furious. Just… just what? It’s the same as the Jewish thing, and like when people criticize the Muslim religion without comprehending it. I seriously couldn’t wrap my head around this… How on Earth can not possessing “noble” warlike traits be grounds for hatred? Just because an individual doesn’t necessarily demonstrate these traits doesn’t mean that he is jealous of them or needs reason to ruin others…. LKJSDHFLKJFKLJHADKJFHAIFOTJALHRFKJASDHFLKJJAS;LFVKJSA;LKTHOIAJREAAHJFLKJADF

Honestly, this book just pissed me off. Not just about religion, but the majority of assumptions he makes about humanity. The only thing I agreed with was his interpretation of science as being its own sort of religion. In trying so hard to be completely based on pure, unadulterated facts, it actually serves as an astetic ideal. In truth, everything that we believe in is nothing more than an interpretation. Nothing can ever be proved as the utter truth.

I’m just done with this book, sorry if this was a little angry and agressive, but it honestly just frusterated me. Honestly, the world would be better off without Nietzsche… No seriously, he was one of Hitler’s inspirations.

I had a lot to say about Neitzshce after reading these essays…three weeks ago. Three weeks can really do things to your memory; oh well.

My first impression of this guy was a rather bad one—he seemed to possess a strong need to constantly build up his own ego while looking down on others (i.e. the reader), and a great deal of his first essay was filled with so much pointless fluff that I found myself reading every second sentence to alleviate the drone going on in my head at stuff I’ve heard before and heard better. Granted, Neitzsche did have legitimate arguments (unlike, say…Rousseau) which he portrayed in an annoyingly roundabout way, and his ego building had peculiar undertones of irony that I half-believed and half-thought I was imagining. So ended his first essay; and so began his second.

His second was largely devoid of the fluff that infested the first—a pleasant surprise, but not enough to make me lower my guard. This felt like the meat of the essays while I was reading it, with themes very similar to Leviathan and actually better written in my opinion. Political science, political science, and more political science; the good stuff, I suppose, although it was similar to his first essay in that I’ve heard it all before. My general opinion of him was certainly improved upon finishing this essay—and so began his third. His…third.

Horror of a vacuum is a universal truth of humankind (in technical terms, everyone with self-awareness). This fear, of course, is paradoxical (and this is one of if not the only correct application of the word ‘paradox’), and can be reasoned out on an intellectual level (but never really goes away as a pure emotion). We would rather will nothingness than not will—this is the sentence that told me this essay was different than the rest. Very different. Asceticism, asceticism, asceticism. Despite not knowing what exactly that word meant for the entire essay (I googled it after), I found myself pulled along by Neitzsche and his suddenly concise, effective, and well-flowed writing. The two essays were revealed as simple foundations for this one, where he, after repeating things I’ve heard before again and again, finally pulled out something that I’ve never heard before. Asceticism, applied in the physical sense—self-torture. Asceticism, applied in the philosophical sense—self-fulfilment. The law of normality, working in conjunction with one of if not the most enduring form of the pleasure principle (Asceticism), produces the delusion of religion, guided by the ascetic priest—mass salvation. This is a view that I’ve never read before (maybe because I don’t read a lot), and I stand corrected on my original view of Nietzsche (well, maybe not completely). In my view, his third essay was not about morality; it was about, well…asceticism. The title “Genealogy of Morals” would have been better named “Genealogy of Asceticism,” although then a lot of people would probably either get the wrong idea or lose interest entirely. I myself lose quite a bit of interest in anything with the word “moral” in its title, but I guess I’m in the minority; oh well.

This story was extremely grim in my opinion. It appears as though every single family found in this book has been hit with some sort of death or loss of sorts. This consistency of misfortune can be seen with the monster as well. the monster is equally detached from his family as Justine and Elizabeth are. It could be that Mary Shelley is attempting to draw a parallel between the establishment of the families in this book. Each family has problems and dysfunctional attributes that are not to be seen in a standard family. They find themselves disarrayed by orphans and adopted children. This could be attempting to show the unjustified hatred felt by society towards the monster. The monster would obviously not fit into a standard family due to his physical appearance. This shows the Hypocrisy of Frankenstein and the other members of society towards the misunderstood monster.

The monster does not fit into the same category as those that I have previously knowledgeable from my readings in arts one. what I have not seen from previous monsters is this level of intelligence. In Frankenstein, he is able to learn to speak very quickly. Not only does he learn language, he masters it, becoming extremely eloquent and able to make cohesive arguments. These arguments are sound and too effective in my opinion to have come from a monster.

Perhaps my idea of a monster is similar to what Sam has stated in class. A monster is simply a creature which cannot argue its point whether it is because of a lack of intelligence or too radically different. Because of this, we feel a disconnection from these “monsters” and lose empathy for them. When one reads Frankenstein they do not have such sentiments towards the monster. Instead, they look at the monster and feel remorse for him. They see his point of view more fully over Grendel’s because of language. Without such a strong ability to communicate, the monster in Frankenstein would be much more monstrous. He would not be perceived with the same light if he was unable to argue his point. This is  the reason many do not view Medea as a monster. She was able to in over the views of some through her strong argumentative skills and intelligence. By having these characteristics, she was able to be seen as less monstrous.

Prior to reading Frankenstein, I’ve definitely heard of him, since I feel as though he is just one of those “cult classic” monsters that everyone more or less knows about. And that’s how it was like for me. I was somewhat familiar with Frankenstein, more so his physical appearance, but upon reading this book I got a deeper sense, a more well-rounded sense of a more human monster than the other novels we have read thus far in Arts One.

This book was a pretty fascinating read in my opinion. I found that Mary Shelley does an exceptional job of bringing Victor’s character to life. Through the use of her vivid and imaginative descriptions, she really paints a picture in your head. Additionally, prior to reading Frankenstein, I expected him to be this awful, immensely monstrous.. monster. I expected his appearance to match exactly who he was on the inside. However, having now read it, my expectations were flawed. Frankenstein is more misunderstood than anything. People think the book is going to be focused on this evil green dude with bolts in his neck murdering a bunch of people; but he is just a misunderstood creature. Rather than fear him, I sympathize for him. For his misjudgment, and attachment to such superficial claims. I particularly enjoyed this book, because this was one of the first times that we’ve seen a twist to our perception of monsters, well at least in my opinion. In Oedipus, we see a man who is a victim of circumstance, but his physical appearance doesn’t look like that of a monster. (Obviously opinions about Oedipus will vary, but that is mine). But in Frankenstein, we have an intimidating, scary-looking (an actually frightening) monster. Frankenstein’s outer appearance paints an inaccurate image of whom he truly is inside. This is so juvenile, but Frankenstein kind of reminds me of Monsters Inc.. where the monsters are misrepresented, and people fear them without really getting a deeper sense of their character and looking beyond just the outside. Which brings me to my other point, I found this book to be quite emotional to my surprise. The tale as a whole intrigued me, and it pulled me in. This book, I can confidently say, kept me enticed the whole read through; from cover to cover.

Overall, I thought Shelley made an excellent book. Reading this piece brought me into almost an alternate universe, for it widened my perspective on monsters.

Well, I must admit, I was one of those who thought that the monster’s name was Frankenstein, and that the scientist was just… some guy. I have been deceived. I also thought that the monster was going to be much more monstrous than he really was in the book. I was actually looking forward to it a little bit, to finally have a monster who is undoubtedly a monster, undoubtedly evil and vicious. But as much as this monster was a murderer, and his namelessness leads him to simply be called ‘Frankenstein’s monster,’ he really wasn’t that truly terrible. Again, we see a creature sadly misunderstood. While his appearance is certainly terrifying, and… unnerving (dead things brought back to life… zombies, anyone?) I can’t help but sympathize with him for being judged so superficially. Especially since the first person to reject him so harshly is his creator, Frankenstein, the closest thing he has to a father. That leads me think Victor would make a fairly bad parent, if you ask me. Again we find ourselves faced with the question of who is the monster. I would be one to lean toward answering this question with neither, as both the monster and Frankenstein do cruel and terrible things, but are also put through cruel and terrible things. I’m not incredibly brave, I would probably run away from something with “watery eyes” and “black lips” as well. But I would also probably be quite cruel if the only thing I knew from the beginning of my life was rejection and loneliness.

If, at the end, the monster had not come and given Victor that final farewell, I would perhaps be more open to calling them both monsters. But the fact that the pain he feels over the terrible things he’s done leads him to tell the people that he’s going to kill himself puts a whole new dimension to him, even so close to the end of the book. He knows his creator wanted him dead, and decides to carry out those wishes, even though he could have simply walked away, free from Frankenstein. He fears for others who he may harm, and says “I shall collect my funeral pile, and consume to ashes this miserable frame” (pg. 224). That one hit me right through the heart. We have on our hands a suicidal monster. Who, I believe, is really no monster. He did monstrous things, he did terrible, tragic things, but no one had ever shown him love or compassion, and so I cannot place the blame entirely on him.

I really enjoyed Frankenstein, probably because it’s one of our first books in which we have multiple encounters with a monster which becomes a very human character as we learn more about him. Part of me hates the monster for his rash and violent tendencies, but another part of me hates Victor for not accepting his creation.

I was really surprised at how emotional this book was. I was expecting a very simple and straightforward story, and instead what I found was an exciting and emotional tale. My favorite part of the novel was the final scene in which the monster returned to Frankenstein’s corpse. It’s here that we see how evolved and human the monster really is. His emotion and intelligence made his actions seem so out of place, perhaps he wasn’t a monster after all. This really ties in with the idea of lonely and misunderstood monsters, such as Grendel or even Medea, creatures which receive no sympathy and because of this become monsters.

Another aspect of the book I enjoyed was the changes of Victor as a character. Early on he’s young and passionate, locked in his quest for the “secret of life”, yet with time he begins to realize the consequences of his creation, and he is worn down from guilt and revenge. His goal changes from creating life to that of destroying life. The very life he created! I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Victor, his youthful ignorant self created a creature which haunted him for the rest of his life killing his family and friends. While some might argue that he is the monster of this story, I can’t help but disagree. While of course he could have showed a bit more compassion to the monster, I don’t believe he has the obligation to be its best friend and make sure its never lonely.

Regarding the monster, I felt like his character was a little strangely constructed (no pun intended), as he’s an incredibly enlightened individual, yet he commits multiple murders just out of rage. Putting that aside, the monster is a character which we are meant to feel bad for. The monster is that lonely kid that nobody talked to in elementary school, but was actually probably a really nice guy. Perhaps that’s what I dislike about the monster, the fact that we have to feel bad for him. He’s a character built to evoke that emotion from the reader, the emotion of pity and sadness. I enjoyed Frankenstein a lot more than I ever thought I would.