#25: Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags

100 books, book review, books, Nietzsche, philosophy

Well over a week ago I finished my twenty-fifth book of the year.  I usually greet this milestone with some sort of fanfare, but this year I let it slip by unnoticed.  The reasons are many, with the end of the school year occupying much of my time last week, beginning to study for the GRE (which I take at the end of this month), looking at graduate schools in earnest, and getting hooked by another book before I had blogged about my previous conquest.  Today I emerge from my technological slumber and finally post about number twenty-five.

Friedrich Nietzsche has been one of my most frequently read authors over the past few years.  His writing is always engaging and entertaining, and his philosophy is always challenging and stimulating.  Ecce Homo is no exception to that rule.  This is Nietzsche’s short intellectual autobiography, written shortly before his descent into madness.  The title is a latin phrase meaning “Behold the man”, which is uttered by Pontius Pilate when he presents the beaten and bloodied Jesus to the crowd shortly before his execution.  The book contains a short preface and four chapters with such bold titles as “Why I Am So Wise” and “Why I Write Such Excellent Books”.  Coupled with the title of the book itself, these chapter titles insinuate a certain amount of braggadocio on the part of Nietzsche.  The text of the book reveals a surprising amount of humility.  Nietzsche presents himself not as some towering intellect or incomparable thinker.  The quality that sets him apart is the courage to take his inquiry to its reasonable conclusion, despite the suffering that can accompany such intense inspection of the belief system surrounding an individual.  Nietzsche believes that the physical and emotional suffering he endured through the course of his life gave him the strength to pursue his philosophy through any intellectual suffering.  He paints himself as a new kind of philosopher, one that actively says yes to all of life.  This is very different from the priestly or purely academic philosophers preceding him.

I found this book to be wonderfully insightful about Nietzsche as a man and a philosopher.  It is definitely one that should be read after most of Nietzsche’s other books, as he offers specific commentary about each of his major works.  There are only a few I have not yet read and I intend to return to Ecce Homo after having done so.  I would recommend this book to any seasoned veteran of Nietzsche but would caution any Nietzsche novices about diving in too soon.

The Current Count

25 Read, 75 To Go

#17: The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags

100 books, book review, books, Nietzsche, philosophy, religion

I once again find myself in the position of apologizing after being absent from the blogosphere for nearly a month.  I can’t claim Jeopardy as an excuse this time.  Instead, I will blame it on my unwavering commitment to devote the best of my energies towards educating the young minds of today into the future leaders of tomorrow.  I can actually see the sarcasm dripping from the computer screen as I read the previous sentence.  To be perfectly honest, I just needed a break.  I have been busy with teaching and taking students to debate tournaments, but that is true for most of the year.  For the past few weeks I deliberately took a step back from reading and did a bit of vegetating.  That came to an end over the past weekend, when I completed The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche wasn’t overly concerned with making friends with his philosophical writings, and The Antichrist is a prime example of that alienating tendency.  It should be noted that the title has a dual meaning, with Antichrist in German meaning both Antichrist in the personified sense and Antichristian.  In this book, Nietzsche establishes himself as a sort of Antichrist by developing a directly Antichristian line of philosophical thought.  Nietzsche’s disdain for Christianity goes beyond the merely intellectual into the realm of personal antipathy.  His delight in tormenting the Christian world is palpable as you turn the pages.  He really, really does not like the Christian Church.  As someone who comes from a Christian background, I was hesitant to read a book that I knew would be so challenging to the belief system that has surrounded me since birth.

Nietzsche’s criticisms are based on the notion that the early Christian church distorted the teachings of Jesus in an effort to empower the weak and suppressed elements throughout the Roman Empire.  Nietzsche argues that Jesus never spoke of sin and punishment or of a denial of the material world.  Instead, he believes that Jesus was a psychological type known as the redeemer.  The redeemer displays an absolute intolerance for pain.  Resistance leads to pain, and the redeemer therefore avoids resistance at all costs.  This avoidance leads to a willing acceptance of the world as it is, including the powerlessness of the redeemer.  This inspires a feeling of peace and happiness that constitutes “the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Nietzsche thinks this redeemer is an imperfect type, but prefers it to the image of Christ developed by the church.

According to Nietzsche, it was the early church fathers (particularly St. Paul) who distorted this simple message in an effort to exert power from a position of weakness.  This is an extension of the philosophy or religion of resentment (of which Judaism is the prime example) that Nietzsche had previously discussed in On the Genealogy of Morals.  These early fathers used the idea of an afterlife (not mentioned by Jesus according to Nietzsche) to force adherents to follow a strict set of rules (also not mentioned by Jesus) that center around denying the urges and instincts of the body.  This denial of the body stems from weakness.  The early Christians lacked bodily strength and worldly power, so they established the possession of such power as proof of a sinful way of life.  Ultimately, this denial is the root of the nihilism that Nietzsche thought was omnipresent in the Europe of his day.  These arguments are all made with a great deal of vitriol.

It has been the tendency of many Christian writers since Nietzsche to dismiss him as a heretic or atheist and condemn his arguments altogether.  I think this is a logical fallacy.  To argue that because Nietzsche is wrong in his disbelief of God he must also be wrong about everything else is a hasty generalization.  A thinker of Nietzsche’s influence and intellectual ability deserves a reasonable consideration.  I don’t intend to take on the role of Nietzschean apologist, but I will admit that I like the man.  His writings are entertaining and thought-provoking, even if not always right.  In the case of The Antichrist, I agree with some of Nietzsche’s arguments but oppose his general condemnation.  His chief concern throughout most of his works is to combat the denial of the body and its natural senses and instincts.  This has always been one of my concerns with religion.  I have never understood why so many Christian theologians throughout history have been so diametrically opposed to the body.  The idea that we were all hopelessly corrupted by original sin has always troubled me.  I cannot believe that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent creator would condemn his entire creation to a lifetime of depravity based on the mistakes of the original man.  I do not, however, think that condemns Christianity as a whole.  I think it is possible to embrace the Christian ideals of love and kindness without denying that there is a natural value and worth in our physical world and our natural urges.  These urges can become corrupt and overpowering, but should not be condemned outright.  Happily, I think there has been a tendency in some circles of Christian thought to place less emphasis on sin and condemnation and focus instead on living out the generous ideals that constitute the real foundation of the faith.  This is a very abbreviated discussion of the issues raised by Nietzsche and my responses to them, but I think this post has gone on long enough. 

The Current Count:

17 Read, 83 To Go

#5: Twilight of the Idols by Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags

100 books, book review, books, Nietzsche, philosophy

The typical book of philosophy seems to be roughly 30 percent real insight and 70 percent over-inflated language.  Nietzsche’s formula is just a little bit different.  He offers 70 percent insight, 20 percent attitude, and 10 percent beastly mustache.  The result is a book like Twilight of the Idols, which I finished last night.  Subtitled “How to Philosophize with a Hammer”, Idols is Nietzsche relaxing a bit and taking aim at the empty concepts that have become the idols of the modern age.  He sets his sights on targets ranging from Socrates to Christianity to Kant to democracy in general.  Nietzsche is never one to pull his punches, and this book is an excellent example.

At the core of the book is Nietzsche’s central tenet that life should always be affirmed.  His chief criticism of most of the so-called ‘idols’ is the tendency to suppress the will to life.  Spiritualism at the expense of sensuality and philosophies that seek to equate reason with virtue at the expense of the body are decadent and deny the will to life.  This decadence has caused the development of a false reality in the West, which manages to place more importance on a theoretical ideal existence than the actual existence we all enjoy.  Christianity is a victim of this same judgment.  The longest section of the book features some of Nietzsche’s most withering criticisms.  Taking aim at some of his contemporaries and recent predecessors, Nietzsche proceeds to rip ‘modern culture’ to shreds.  He again urges a revaluation of all values, as traditional morality has become life-denying and should be replaced by a truly life-affirming ethic. 

This book was outstanding.  While it lacks the depth of argument to be found in Beyond Good and Evil or On The Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols features some of Nietzsche’s most cutting criticisms.  His use of sarcasm and insult can be highly entertaining, and this book finds him being deliberately provocative.  The result is sometimes outrageous but never dull. 

The Current Count

5 Read, 95 To Go

#67: On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags

100 books, book review, books, classics, Nietzsche, philosophy

Wow, it is November 30th.  Eleven months down, and I just limped through book sixty-seven.  Gone is the energy of January and February.  Vanished is the optimism of July.  All that remains is the harsh reality of December.  I am thirty-three books short of my goal, with thirty-one days remaining in the year.  The odds don’t look great.  That said, I intend to soldier on and try to make my final count as respectable as possible.

Book sixty-seven should help in that regard.  I returned to Nietzsche, this time choosing his polemic On the Genealogy of Morals.  This book is primarily concerned with issues surrounding the origin of our moral prejudices, and builds off of his earlier thoughts as expressed in Human, All Too Human and Beyond Good and Evil.  Genealogy consists of a preface explaining why Nietzsche felt compelled to produce this particular work and three essays exploring different aspects of historical morality.

The first essay is entitled “Good and Evil, Good and Bad”.  In it, Nietzsche explores the origin of the terms comprising the title.  He locates the origin of ‘Good and Bad’ in the distinction between the nobility and the commoners.  The nobility began by calling themselves ‘good’, and by association their actions were deemed ‘good’.  In contrast, the commoners and their respective actions were ‘bad’.  The distinction here is not explicitly moral.  Instead it is a purely social dichotomy, with bad merely indicating a low-born status.  The terms ‘Good and Evil’ have a much different origin.  According to Nietzsche, ‘good and evil’ developed from a slave morality, where the individuals lacking all power came to resent the powerful.  These weaker individuals viewed themselves as good, and therefore designated the powerful (and their respective attributes) as evil.  This is a moral distinction, and contributed to the development of Judaism (and subsequently Christianity).  Nietzsche vehemently disagrees with equating strength to evil.  The actions of the strong, in his opinion, stem only from their inherent power, not from malice.  For this reason, it is a mistake to condemn them by virtue of their strength alone.

The second essay bears the title “Guilt, Bad Conscience, and the Like.”  Nietzsche first explores the origins of punishment, which he locates in the creditor/debtor relationship.  Man recognized the ability to harm another as a form of payment for a broken promise.  There are a variety of uses for punishment, but inspiring remorse in the offender is not a realistic one.  Instead, the bad conscience is created from the imposition of community standards and expectations that limit the freedom of the individual will.  The feeling of remorse that accompanies violations of those standards is the repressed instinct for freedom.  It is therefore a self-destructive tendency that Nietzsche opposes.

The final essay is titled “What is the meaning of ascetic ideals?”  This essay explores the urge to asceticism as it exists in a variety of groups, including artists, philosophers, and priests.  The artist is always beholden to some ideology to serve a framework for his products, and is therefore not a significant concern.  Instead, one must look to the philosopher’s relationship to the ascetic ideal.  The philosopher is attracted to asceticism as the best possible environment to maintain an independence of thought and spirit.  Originally the philosopher disguised himself as the ascetic priest in order to avoid suspicion.  The remnants of that identification are still evident as philosophers tend to embrace the chastity, poverty, and humility of the priest.  The true ascetic priest, by contrast, uses the ascetic ideal as license to minister to and save the deformed and the damned.  By excusing himself from the pleasures of the world, the priest places himself below the powerful.  At the same time, the fact that this is a willing subjugation grants him a superiority to the lower castes, who are weak without any choice.  The priest uses this position to attempt to deaden the continuous pain of living as one of the weak among society.  As a result, the priest (and his religion) gained a tremendous amount of power and influence.  Society has thus embraced the will to truth represented by the priest (who equates truth with God, or with ultimate being).  Neither science nor history have questioned the value of truth, instead predicating their respective views of the world on that very assumption.  Nietzsche concludes by calling for an examination of the value of truth itself.

As you might have guessed, this book is quite an undertaking.  The relative brevity lures you in, and then the sheer power of Nietzsche’s intellect bludgeons you.  I am a long way from offering my own thoughts on this book.  It demands rumination.  I know that I don’t agree with everything Nietzsche says, but it will be a while before I am ready to articulate what and why.  If you are interested in a book that calls for that kind of contemplation, give this one a try.

The Current Count:

67 Read, 33 To Go

 

#62: Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags

100 books, book review, books, humor, Nietzsche, philosophy

There are books out there that you can read in an afternoon and feel as though you took your time.  There are also books out there that you can spend nearly two weeks reading and feel as though you blazed through them.  Nietzsche always falls into the latter category.  I enjoy reading Nietzsche for the same reason I enjoy running in the mornings– I know that the shakiness and the exhaustion of today will become the strength and stamina of tomorrow.  Reading Nietzsche can be a laborious task, but is always a rewarding one. 

Beyond Good and Evil was Nietzsche’s first book after Thus Spoke Zarathustra and contains a similar effort to spell out the author’s philosophy in its entirety.  While Zarathustra is written as a novel and presents Nietzsche’s thinking in a more poetic light, Beyond Good and Evil  is more systematic and less literary.  The two make for an excellent exposition of the mature Nietzsche.  Beyond Good and Evil  touches on a wide variety of themes, but the predominant issue addressed by Nietzsche is morality.  In his view, philosophers throughout history have been too willing to accept the established definition of morality (largely based on Christianity) and are therefore limited in their philosophical potential.  What mankind needs is a new breed of thinker willing to move beyond the traditional concepts of good and evil. 

Clearly that is a very compact and abbreviated summary.  Nietzsche is one of those authors whose work is so laden with profundity that any review will be necessarily lacking in detail.  Rather than write pages and pages of summary and analysis, I have opted for brevity.  I cannot overstate the depth of thinking involved in this book.  Some sections can be read five times in immediate succession and generate a different understanding each time.  I do not agree with everything Nietzsche says (particularly his thoughts about women), but everything he writes demands consideration.  He has the rare power to force a level of self-examination that is often uncomfortable but certainly worth the effort.  For a lighter look at Nietzsche, check out the Nietzsche Family Circus, which pairs a random quote from Nietzsche with a scene from the Family Circus cartoon strip to very humorous effect. 

The Current Count:

62 Read, 38 To Go

#12: Human, All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags

100 books, book review, books, classics, literature, Nietzsche, philosophy

Nietzsche is a philosopher with the heart of a poet (and a mustache that makes Tom Selleck look like a 13 year old working towards his first shave).  Human, All Too Human contains 638 aphorisms on a variety of subjects, including religion, philosophy, aesthetics, science, ethics, and more.  The book falls in the middle part of Nietzsche’s career, when his philosophy is tempered by a subtle sympathy for the common man and contemporary culture.  This is Nietzsche looking ahead to what will come, but not ordering the reader to force its coming.  Nietzsche’s wit is sharp and his prescience is remarkable.  Many of his cultural prophecies have come true in the century since his death.

You cannot argue with a mustache like that.

Let me be clear– this is not a fun book to read.  It is, however, a brilliant book.  Nietzsche has an uncanny ability to point out exactly those things that shame us most about our natures.  It is subtitled A Book For Free Spirits, and the free spirit is what Nietzsche believes we all should be but lack the courage to become.  This concept is a clear precursor to the Ubermensch of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  Many other ideas that are central to Nietzsche’s later philosophy make their first appearance in Human, All Too Human.  The structure of this book makes it easier to digest than some of his other works.  He does not attempt to offer a complete philosophical system.  Instead, we are presented with his observations about the state of everything he sees.  If you are new to Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human is a good place to start.

The Current Count:

12 Read, 88 To Go