“Beyond Good and Evil” by Friedrich Nietzsche

For everyone, there will always be some writer or poet who articulates what they feel better than anyone else. It might be cliché, but for me that writer has always been Nietzsche. Reading The Birth of Tragedy during undergrad was an incredible experience, and even though I was not taking philosophy classes anymore, I wanted to try and dive into his later works.

Beyond Good and Evil is Nietzsche’s attempt to synthesize his worldview into a single volume. This is similar to Also Sprach Zarathustra but that volume was only comprehensible to those that knew the author well. This is his attempt to make a more layman-friendly version of his thoughts. I personally think that he succeeded, the volume is very readable for 19^th century philosophy. Sure there are parts you will want to reread and go back to later, but on the whole it is very amateur friendly.

Each of the nine sections covers a different aspect of Nietzsche’s thoughts on life. They seem independent, but actually build and grow on each other. Slightly different interpretations of the title are presented, but the main take away is that life is not black and white. There are actually many different shades of grey present. Similarly in morality there is no good and evil, only gradients thereof. This is what he means by “beyond good and evil,” these words do not actually exist in life. This means that some sections come of as contradictory since he is continually making conditional statements and examining different sides of arguments, but that is the point. Morality can be contradictory sometimes.

Obviously there are numerous things that date this work. His tedious comments on women for instance. I imagine that he would be appalled to find that many women in the 21^st century read and critique his work, which is the only redeeming factor that I can see. And other arguments that he makes about the mental state of Europe are a little odd, but I think that is more of an indication that I need to brush up on my history than anything else.

Nietzsche is still the philosopher for me. There are statements and arguments that he makes that resound within the depths of my brain, and getting this more holistic view of his later stages of thinking solidifies that, but also confirms that he was a product of his time. It is hard to sum up in a blog post the things that I adore about his work, but I think I will let you explore that on your own. He was a man ahead of his time, in many ways, but in others he is certainly a product of his times and demonstrates that remarkably well. If you are a fan of his philosophy, I would definitely pick this volume up.