Book Review: Beyond Good and Evil

Existentialism is the philosophical study of finding the purpose of life, and Beyond Good and Evil is a journey that tries to explain humanity’s continuous journey to find and create purpose of life, to manifest the Will To Power.

Nietzsche brought forth the European mind and its contradictions, Christianity in Nietzsche’s eyes has a significant role in fulfilling the lives of Europeans but still it failed to give it completion. He criticized Plato as he along with so many philosophers had not explored the continuous gaping hole of finding the so-called ‘Will To Power’.

The whole book explores the ways the initiated and uninitiated people find their purpose. In explaining the book Nietzsche famously said that “I can write in a sentence what people need whole books to write”. May sound arrogant but every sentence in this book is a sateric explanation of the stupidity and ignorance that exists in society. Don’t be embarrassed if it takes you three or four attempts to understand what he is really saying. Nietzsche covers ideas in his previous work Thus Spoke Zarathustra but with more explanation.

This is a short book about 227 pages and 296 short and long paragraphs where he explores different aspects of existentialism. Nietzsche as a writer has wit and sometimes can be seen repeating different synonyms of the same word to explain very vividly the expression and thought that he preaches.

He is critical of religion and the hierarchy of the church in nation building, he is critical of the philosophers who only pretend to look for answers rather than asking the right question, it is a discovery of the thoughts that go beyond simply the black and white explanation of religion and philosophy. Nietzsche always proves the fact that there are multiple rationales for something to occur and thus only categorizing an act to good or evil is irrational.

Nietzsche accuses earlier thinkers in Beyond Good and Evil of lacking critical thinking skills and accepting dogmatic premises out of hand when thinking about morality. He charges them specifically of building elaborate metaphysical systems on the notion that the good man is the antithesis of the evil man rather than merely another expression of the same fundamental impulses that manifest more clearly in the evil man. The work transcends good and evil in the sense that it rejects conventional morality, which Nietzsche despises in favor of what he sees as an affirmative strategy that bravely tackles the perspectival nature of knowledge and the precarious state of the contemporary individual.

The book is challenging to understand but those who enjoy a different view and twist on philosophy will find the book fascinating. You can also read more works of the German philosophers as the post explanations of the same thoughts expressed here.