Beyond Good and Evil

Beyond Good and Evil Analysis

Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is his take on morality, religion, motivation, and more. Under the guise of moral discussion, he relates everything that seems to have been on his mind in a particular period. One gets the impression that he stepped away from civilization for a while to develop his ideas enough to lay down in this written form. He focuses a great deal on the value of an individual's own internal experience, crediting individual discovery as the force that drives all creative endeavors. In the truest sense, Nietzsche presents himself as an artist in this book. He feels misunderstood by people, trapped in a mind that comprehends and invents concepts that are too fluid and complex to fit into the limitations of human language, so he cannot explain to critics where his true authority and genius are found.

Regarding morality, Nietzsche professes that all morality is inherently personal. Each person must dive into their mind and discover that their system of complex motivations is what shapes their morality, instead of an exterior standard. For this reason, he condemns Christianity. As it is traditionally practiced, it presents a prescriptive and universal moral code that holds no value for the individual because it is superimposed on them. Nietzsche is less concerned with a choice and more concerned with the unconscious influences that caused a person to make that choice, even if they cannot recognize all of those influences.

He posits his firm belief in the outsider. He writes that there are intellectual classes into which people fall, of which some are naturally born to be subject to others and some resent this. Considering himself a member of the highest class, Nietzsche devotes a large part of his book to a discourse on why the truly intelligent mind must always be alone. The creative mind is also the one that questions the status quo, and if, like in his case, the genius or artist is not capable of explaining the intricacies of their mind, then they will be condemned and shunned by the rest of society for being abnormal without being granted the appropriate authority. There's a serious thread of frustration that surfaces throughout the book. Overall, however, Nietzsche presents a systematic discussion of how he believes humans make choices and the consequences of these processes.

Consequently, his philosophical treatise appears as a culmination of profound contemplation, perhaps suggesting a period of withdrawal from societal constraints to cultivate his ideas. Central to his discourse is the valorization of personal experience as the driving force behind all creative endeavors, positioning Nietzsche himself as an artist of philosophical thought. Yet, amidst this artistic expression, Nietzsche grapples with a sense of being misunderstood, a consequence of grappling with concepts too fluid and complex for human language to adequately encapsulate.

Within the realm of morality, Nietzsche upends traditional notions by asserting its inherently personal nature. He rejects the notion of a universal moral code imposed externally, as exemplified by Christianity, in favor of an introspective journey to uncover one's intricate system of motivations. For Nietzsche, understanding the unconscious influences shaping one's choices holds greater significance than the choices themselves.

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