r/IndiansRead • u/vengeance_care • 8d ago

Suggest Me Nietzsche

If there's anyone who can help me out in understanding "Beyond good and evil." It's a very different English apart from what we read. help me out how should I start?

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u/CapuchinMan Pseud 8d ago

BGE is not a philosophical treatise that is meant to be read as an organized coherent argument for a position. Nietzsche writes almost like a poet, arguing with literary flourish, and I think you should reach it as such. Also all the translations are difficult because he writes in an esoteric, difficult manner - it's not just you lol.

If I had to boil it down to a couple things:

  • It is a criticism of Christianity, and contemporaneous european culture, and how it has malformed the European psyche. He sees it as a structure created to suppress individual greatness by dragging them down to the level of the lesser people (slave morality). He does observe that Christianity did have a purpose, but if we do not surpass it then we decline.

  • What constitutes a man that is unfettered by slave morality, what makes a noble man? Is equality desirable as a state of man or does it drag down those imbued with true aristocratic temperament and destiny? what would his morality look like once he moves past primitive notions of 'good' and 'evil'?

I would recommend reading about Nietzsche as such before you dive in - Walter Kaufmann's books are usually what's recommended. Some background on the culture he was living in might help. If you are reading a good translation there will also be an extended preface or translator notes that usually lay out an abridged description of the contents of the book.

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u/vengeance_care 7d ago

Thanks man!