A question that I have seen brought up by several reviewers here at Amazon is the question of the relation between 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' and 'Beyond Good and Evil'. Now, this is, in my humble opinion, one of the most difficult interpretational problems that Nietzschean scholarship could ever wrestle with. But scholarship (naturally) barely recognizes that the problem even exists! In this brief review of BGE it is this relationship that I would like to focus on. And, as is so often the case in Nietzsche interpretation, it is to Nietzsche himself that we must turn for our guidance:
"When you consider that this book followed after Zarathustra, you may perhaps also guess the dietetic regimen to which it owes its origin. The eye that had been spoiled by the tremendous need for seeing far--Zarathustra is even more far-sighted than the Czar-- is here forced to focus on what lies nearest, the age, the around-us. In every respect, above all also in the form, you will find the same deliberate turning away from the instincts that had made possible a Zarathustra. The refinement in form, in intention, in the art of silence is in the foreground; psychology is practiced with admitted hardness and cruelty--the book is devoid of any good-natured word.
All this is a recuperation: who would guess after all what sort of recuperation such a squandering of good-naturedness as Zarathustra represents makes necessary?
Theologically speaking--listen closely, for I rarely speak as a theologian--it was God himself who at the end of his day's work lay down as a serpent under the tree of knowledge: thus he recuperated from being God - He had made everything too beautiful. The devil is merely the leisure of God on that seventh day ..." (from 'Ecce Homo', the conclusion of the chapter entitled 'Beyond Good and Evil'.)
Thus it is Nietzsche himself who draws our attention to the difference between BGE and Z and not merely some scholarly fancy. Now, exactly what does Nietzsche here indicate about this difference? (Always keep in mind that BGE is the book that immediately followed Zarathustra in the Nietzschean canon.) Zarathustra is a vision that endures, that is intended by its author to endure, while BGE concentrates on the times, on 'current affairs'. Thus one imagines that BGE will eventually be forgotten or ignored and that this is indeed the authors exact intention. Regarding BGE Nietzsche draws our attention to its refinement in form, intention and the 'art of silence'. Was Zarathustra not so refined? He immediately adds that (in BGE) "psychology is practiced with admitted hardness and cruelty--the book is devoid of any good-natured word." Perhaps he means to indicate that psychology was not at all practiced in Zarathustra? Or perhaps he merely means to indicate that the psychology practiced in Zarathustra was not hard or cruel. Nietzsche, in the penultimate sentence of the first chapter of BGE, famously proclaims that Psychology is once again the Queen of the Sciences. ...Perhaps this proclamation is itself an example of this hardness and cruelty?
Be that as it may, Nietzsche then tells us that BGE was a recuperation (for him) from the squandering of good-naturedness that Zarathustra requires. Then, as capstone to this brief chapter explicating BGE, Nietzsche does something quite remarkable - he speaks theologically! (The age of parables is perhaps not as dead as the Zeitgeist assumes.) He tells us that the serpent in Eden was actually God. God does this because "He had made everything too beautiful." ...A frighteningly pretty fable. But what has this to do with Nietzsche's understanding of BGE?
First a few words on the theological parable Nietzsche here tells. The serpent, of course, is the one that convinces Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. (Note that the tree of knowledge had always been in Paradise, it is not foreign to Paradise, thus it is not merely a part of the 'recuperation of God'.) But this feast of knowledge, like all feasts (alas), had consequences: the consequences being the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. This last cannot be overestimated: knowledge destroys all these "too beautiful" paradises. In Nietzsche's parable, of course, there is no devil -he is "merely the leisure of God"- thus God both made and, according to this parable of Nietzsche, then willfully destroyed Paradise.
Okay, but what exactly does this have to do with the relation between BGE and Zarathustra? At the beginning of the above quoted section of 'Ecce Homo' Nietzsche had referred to the time prior to his writing BGE as the 'Yes-saying' part of his task, then came the 'No-saying' part. (As stated earlier, BGE is the book that Nietzsche wrote after Zarathustra.) We now understand that BGE is the No-saying part while Zarathustra was the Yes-saying part of Nietzsche's task. Now the theological parable Nietzsche tells in Ecce Homo becomes clear. Paradise, the 'too beautiful' paradise, is Zarathustra while the 'tree of knowledge' is BGE. Nietzsche, of course, is the serpent/God that creates both paradise and the knowledge that eventually destroys it. ...And we readers of Nietzsche? Perhaps we are intended to enjoy the fruits of the Zarathustrian Paradise that the 'God' Nietzsche surely intends to build - but only for a while. One day Knowledge, knowledge that (the 'serpent') Nietzsche so 'devilishly' indicates in BGE, will destroy this 'Paradise' too.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this interpretation of Nietzsche's gnomic remarks in Ecce Homo is essentially correct - why would Nietzsche (eventually) want to destroy the world he intends to make? Hmmm... Let's review our (Nietzschean) History. After the legendary fiasco in (the Christian) Paradise humanity was expelled and had to build for itself a new world. And now, after the prophesied (by Nietzsche) destruction of Christianity and modernity (these 'Platonisms for the People') comes to pass --well, what? We get to build and live in the new (Nietzschean) Zarathustrian world, another 'too beautiful' paradise. And later, after BGE, the tree of knowledge that lives unnoticed in the heart of the Nietzschean/Zarathustrian paradise, is finally 'discovered' and fully devoured (i.e., read correctly) and thus destroys that paradise-- what then? Well, one imagines that some new God (or, far more likely, some new philosopher) builds a new world. WHAT?!? Can you say Eternal Return of the Same? Oh, I just knew you could...
Now, it would take another review to even begin to indicate why Nietzsche makes his world - briefly, he does so as an affirmation of life. And one suspects that, for Nietzsche, destruction itself is but a moment within affirmation. It is in this manner that we can now suggest that the 'tree of knowledge' (i.e., BGE), the No-saying part of Nietzsche's work, is only but a moment in an even greater affirmation. This is without a doubt one of the most profound books in the history of philosophy. The fact that it reads so easily is but another example of its merciless psychology: its readers mistakenly stop at the far too beautiful surface.
But it is in the fearsome depths that the philosopher Nietzsche hides.
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Reviews with images
The greatest
Just received this item, excellent conditions, very legible print. After reading Zarathustra I was perplexed by Nietzsche, his writing skills are nothing short of sublime, the most important thinker of the 20th century for me. By the way, read all the Walter Kaufmann’s translations of Nietzsche’s books, he captured and stayed as close as you can be to the original German writings.
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