Nietzsche

For Friday's class, we read Nietzsche's Preface and the First Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals.

I don't know. I've read (parts of) some of his other work, and I don't think it was as interesting as Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Every time I read Nietzsche, I feel depressed. I suppose it's the nihilism more than anything else. Being slapped in the face with the supposed sheer meaninglessness of it all isn't particularly enlightening to me.

Now, what I do like about Nietzsche is his willingness to be candid and question everything.

Personally, I don't think getting an objective viewpoint requires nihilism at all.

The way he goes about it is silly to me. On pages 46-48 he gives a dialogue that, while stylistically interesting (though that may be just as much the work of the translator), is inconsistent overall. As he reduces "selfless" morality into just another kind of "control-seeking," he never turns his analysis back to himself or his own endeavors. What is their value if there is no true standard, no method of judgment that has any basis outside of human selfishness?

I guess this is why I'm not a nihilist. I really don't think it makes someone any more objective. All this hopeless and destruction of values would just make me want to stop living.