Nietzsche published the first edition of this treatise in 1882 and the second expanded edition in 1887. In between, he had published both “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and “Beyond Good and Evil”. This book largely consists of a set of aphorisms, paragraph-length topical discussions, and a collection of poems. Nietzsche begins, “What distinguishes the common nature is that it unflinchingly keeps sight of its advantage…. The unreason or odd reason (Unvernunft oder Quervernunft) of passion is what the common type despises in the noble, especially when this passion is directed at objects whose value seems quite fantastic and arbitrary…. The higher nature’s taste is for exceptions, for things that leave most people cold and seem to lack sweetness; the higher nature has a singular value standard…. The most industrious age—our own—doesn’t know how to make anything of all its industriousness and money except still more money and still more industriousness…. The opposite of the world of the madman is not truth and certainty but the generality and universal bindingness of a faith; in short, the non-arbitrary in judgment. And man’s greatest labour so far has been to reach agreement about very many things and to lay down a law of agreement—regardless of whether these things are true or false. This is the discipline of the head which has preserved humanity…. The most select minds bristle at this universal bindingness—the explorers of truth above all!”
Nietzsche pontificates on the necessity of aesthetics to achieve meaning in life, “As an aesthetic phenomenon existence is still bearable to us, and art furnishes us with the eye and hand and above all the good conscience to be able to make such a phenomenon ourselves.” This goes, hand in hand, in opposition to his conception of morality. “As soon as we see a new picture, we immediately construct it with the help of all the old experiences…. There are no experiences other than moral ones, not even in the realm of sense perception…. Wherever we encounter morality, we find an evaluation and ranking of human drives and actions. These evaluations and rankings are always the expression of the needs of a community and herd: that which benefits it the most…. With morality the individual is instructed to be a function of the herd and to ascribe value to himself only as a function.”
Finally, Nietzsche often deals head-on with the problems of modernity and God, “Do we still hear nothing of the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we still smell nothing of the divine decomposition?—Gods, too, decompose! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How can we console ourselves, the murderers of all murderers! The holiest and the mightiest thing the world has ever possessed has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood from us?” He gives some suggestions for living the best life, “Either one does not dream, or does so interestingly. One should learn to spend one’s waking life in the same way: not at all, or interestingly.” Nietzsche concludes, “The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is—to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge!”
