Beyond Good and Evil

About the book

Book author: Friedrich Nietzsche

This is the second book from Nietzsche that I have read, the first being So Spoke Zarathustra (but my notes are not online).

This book is challenging morality and ethics. It was published in 1886. It’s poking holes in assumed ethical structures and traditional morality, and leaving some unsolved questions for the philosophers of the next century. Profound!

It is a difficult read: because it’s Nietzsche, written in a polemical style, in German Prose (then translated to English, which is not my native language). In other words, a drag. It took a long time…

You might say Nietzsches books are a rugged mountain range: the journey is steep, and the trails are not clearly marked. But the summit—once reached—offers a sense of possibility and a vista that reveals how limited our usual horizons really are.

Reflection and takeaways

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

I like Nietzsche. He was a bit of a renegade. He is widely misunderstood, because people thought he was a cynical nihilist, but in fact he was trying to cure it. He realised and stated that “God is dead, and we have killed him”, that God and the Christian ethos system of the West and it’s morals are a little outdated for our modern era. Humans and rational thinking killed God, and if there is no Heaven or Hell, how do we find meaning? There is no Evil, or Good, or even sin. According to Nietzsche, sin is beating much out of man. Fasting, rules, sexual abstinence and whatnot. But really, you can do whatever you want. But if you can do whatever you want, and little to no rules apply, how do you find meaning?

§22 “It is we alone who have fabricated causes, succession, reciprocity, relativity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, motive, purpose”

According to him, the people who can find their own meaning, independent from any other “source” other than themselves, transform into übermensch. They have “overcome” and are “above” their humanity; and humanity here is meant as something who suffers. But this is more prevalent in So Spoke Zarathustra. I want to state here that this was the “original” übermensch before the Nazis took over the term (much like they took over the swastika).

He dismantles most philosophies that try to argue about being good with some simple antithesis: Is Good better than Evil? Is Eternal better than Temporal? And if you think about it, it is natural to assume that being good is better, and that something that is eternal is better. But why? And almost all existing philosophy assumes that we should strive for good. But why that is, is not discussed by the old philosophers. Why is Good better than Evil? And also, “living naturally”, it is, in fact, the same rigid dogmas but disguised as “living naturally”. In one sense, this is a really scary thought if you understand it.

He instead says that all life strives for a “Will to Power”, not to “live good” or “live evil”. Life must go on. Your organism must go on. This is inherent in all life; it seeks power and thriving. Power and influence over nature, to grow and to overcome. Embrace that instead.

I like stoicism, but he dismantles it pretty well early on. Stoics preach about “living according to Nature”. Nietzsche argues that it’s too vague: in actual nature, things eat other things, and it is rather violent. Moreover; should you strive for being content? Don’t you strive for more? In one sense, stoicism is a tyranny that limits you.

I doubt I understood even half of this book. But I do think a lot of people today suffer from a meaning crisis. In secular Sweden, we have almost no religion. But we haven’t either replaced it with some new framework that gives people meaning or oneness with the universe. As a consequence, most people just “live their lives”, in accordance with “villa, vovve, volvo” (house, dog, car). This can be akin to a “herd mentality”; it is an easy life, and so most live it. But the “real” life to live is for you to discover, and that is hard work. And it is lonely work. But noone else can do that work for you. You need to forge your own path outside of the collective norms. If we can’t rely on older moral frameworks, do we replace them, or do we bravely create our own?

§29 “It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege to be strong”

Nietszche also speaks about morality from power:

• Master Morality: Values strength, nobility, creativity, and self-affirmation; it arises from those who define what is “good” in terms of excellence and vitality.
• Slave Morality: Emphasizes qualities like humility and compassion, often developed by the weaker or subjugated who label the masters’ traits as “evil.”

Nietzsche’s aim is not to praise one and condemn the other per se but to show how moral values emerge from power dynamics.

Some other profound ideas from “our boy” Nietzsche is the “Eternal Recurrence”. Assume the universe repeats itself forever. Live your live and make your choices so that if you stood before the same choice again, pick it with such conviction and live it fully. Pick it in a way so that you would pick it every time. And love your fate – amor fati.

Why did I pick it

Had some long flights, and it’s been on my to read.

Verdict

3.5 /5. Some paragraphs were astounding, but overall, it was a drag to read this book. It was hard to reach “flow” for a dumb person like me.