You dogmatist liars! Nietzsche's Beyond Good And Evil, reviewed

                                                       Image: Amazon.com

Luis Felipe Montoya Rodriguez

"Have you ever read Nietzsche?" That is a question with a very bad reputation, especially among “edgy” teens. So, sadly, I'm going to ask you the same question. Have you ever read Nietzsche? Maybe you have or maybe not, but what books?

Beyond Good & Evil is a book written by Friedrich Nietzsche in 1886. This book contains the early philosophical thoughts of Nietzsche in aphorisms. Thought not only requires time but study, and how much time was he studying philosophy? God knows. But it seems quite a long time; 42 years of life could easily be 32 years of philosophical experience. Coincidentally, Nietzsche was 42 years old when he wrote this masterpiece.

Nietzsche expresses a variety of feelings that may confuse the reader; the use of aphorisms before starting a concept may make the writing look organized, but in philosophy, this can be a dubious tactic. I do not possess enough philosophical knowledge to lie in your face and tell you I understood it fully.

Sometimes, in some fragments, he looked rather pleased as if he knew what he was saying while he wrote with a smug face: "let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles!" Nietzsche could convince you he's gone mad without trying to depict it to you but placing you in his shoes.

This book is written in a very similar way to a poem, perhaps not the most rhythmical nor the most rhyming, but it does trick you to see it as one.

"Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus." Nietzsche uses aphorisms to create a poem-like structure. The quote means: “Adventavit donkey, handsome and powerful”. He uses this to refer to stoics, the followers of stoicism.

If you never liked thinkers who used their very own philosophical “formats” to analyze, this one is for you. Nietzsche accuses every philosopher of dogmatic behaviour, how they leave things unanswered or in plain doubt because they don’t have what it takes to question them. This makes him feel sick. He compares them to cowards who can’t seduce a woman due to their insecurities, their dogmatic prejudices.

Have you ever had never-ending monologues with yourself without reaching an agreement? Put that on a sheet of paper and you got Nietzsche’s style, a style that is quite chaotic by trying to not fall in his personal dogma and not die in the attempt.

This book is attempting to look fancier by using circular never-ending arguments that conclude in nothing and don't allow us to comprehend what Nietzsche is trying to express. Philosophy is hard to write and read in general, but when somebody wants to make it look easy? It's the hardest thing to ever understand.

It couldn't get worse but wait, there's more! You get to see him writing bleeding heart Latin quotes before monologuing. But don't forget it takes about a page to just say "dogmatic thought bad". Have you ever seen people who act like robots? NPC's? He's one for sure. His favourite quotes are:

"Dogma man bad", "Latin cool!", “What do you mean I'm a big circular argument myself?", and the best of all: "other philosophers bad". You could read throughout the whole book and see I'm right in what I'm saying; Nietzsche is dogmatic himself. Nietzsche accuses others of dogma to reach the truth, but he fell for pure nihilism himself.