Introducing Nietzsche: A Graphic Guide

Introducing Graphic Guides

by Laurence Gane, Piero (Contributor)

Why must we believe that God is dead? Can we accept that traditional morality is just a 'useful mistake'? Did the principle of 'the will to power' lead to the Holocaust? What are the limitations of scientific knowledge? Is human evolution complete or only beginning? It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Friedrich Nietzsche for our present epoch. His extraordinary insights into human psychology, morality, religion and power seem quite clairvoyant today: existentialism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and postmodernism are plainly anticipated in his writings - which are famously enigmatic and often contradictory. "Introducing Nietzsche" is the perfect guide to this exhilarating and oft-misunderstood philosopher.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Comics, Biography, History, Graphic Novels, Psychology

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Amira Mahmoud · Rating 4 out of 5]

نيتشه ودوستويفسكي، يا الجمال! :)))

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

From what this short sharp graphic guide tells you, if somebody was to have leaned over a balcony and dropped a television on Nietzsche’s head as he was walking by, that would have not been such a bad thing. Or crept up behind him and gave him a little push and sent him tumbling down the stairs, like you might do with your grandma if you were in a playful frame of mind. And if he mortally wounded his vast moustache on the way down to the ground floor, so much the better. Rarely has the world seen a grumpier old bastard than Nietzsche. And there have been a lot of grumpy old bastards, there’s never a shortage of those. Nietzsche could have won the World’s Grumpiest Man contest for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He would have strolled it.

As well as World’s Grumpiest and World’s Biggest Moustache, he was World’s Most Pompous. His books were filled with Eiffel-Tower-sized grandiose pomposities which he called aphorisms and expected everyone to notice how wise, profound and knee-trembling they were, and when no one read any of this crap he became even grumpier, and serve him right too. Let us contemplate a few of these aphorisms:

The majesty of truth is not scaled by the rope-ladder of logic.

The sense of the tragic increases and diminishes with sensuality.

That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

Madness is something rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, peoples, ages, it is the rule.

No one can extract from things, books included, more than he already knows.

Let the tribe sacrifice itself, if necessary, to preserve the existence of one great individual. It is not the quantity but the quality of humanity that we must seek to increase.

It’s like Nietzsche had a Profundity Generator chugging away in his study churning out pages of this ridiculous stuff, hopping from one huge topic to another (History, Appolline Philosophy, Religion, Psychology, Toadstools, Interior Decoration in 15th century Armenia). Every one of these statements makes no literal sense and this guide never takes to time to figure out what he might have actually meant with most of it, it just skips madly on to the next one. Nietzsche loved to spray around words like Truth, Knowledge and Power without saying what he meant. Truth about what? Power for who? Here’s another one:

Either one does not dream at all or one dreams in an interesting manner.

Au contraire, Mr Nietzsche, I got you there. I have had many immensely dull dreams.

Until finally we get to an idea which we can focus on, finally. This is where Nietzsche puts forward his ideas on how the morality of Western society has been deliberately sabotaged by Christianity. And this is where hipsters like to sling Thus Spake Zarathustra or Beyond Good ‘n’ Evil back & forth because they are boldly anti-Christian, and I have to give fair play to Nietzsche here because that was indeed quite a bold thing to be in the 19th Century, and still is in Texas.

So back to the story : in bracing ancient Greek ‘n’ Roman times there was a set of NOBLE ethics. Aristocrats could do what the hell they wanted to achieve greatness. (Er, since you ask, the idea of greatness is not explained.) This noble morality was overthrown by the SLAVE morality of Christianity, which substitutes COMPASSION, PITY, and LOVE for all the weak members of society. But as far as Nietzsche was concerned, altruism was where the rot set in.

I single out PITY as the fundamental “anti-life” instinct for in pitying another we weaken ourselves, nor do we benefit the object of our pity.

(Such a strange statement – tell that to the beneficiaries of the Medicines sans Frontiers teams everywhere.)

The idea seems like pure social Darwinism – we shouldn’t help or preserve the weak because they deserve to die, they’re just dragging the rest of us down. So does Nietzsche pave the way to Tiergartenstrasse 4.

This guide strenuously points out that Nietzsche was not an anti-Semite or a nationalist and so you shouldn’t think of him as a proto-Nazi. It seems to be quite true, but he did think that the weak should die and great men should be unconstrained by the morality of slavery, so you say tomato and I say Heil Hitler.

This guide tells us that lotsa big names have had a lot of time for Nietzsche since he went mad and died, such as Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida and Foucault. So what do I know. I think I would still have dropped a television on his head, or maybe a bowling ball.

[Atri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A psychological critique must draw on the author's own psychic reality if it is to have real insight. Here, Nietzsche paid the full price for his self-knowledge. "When I have looked into my Zarathustra, I walk up and down in my room for half an hour, unable to master an unbearable fit of sobbing."

The price of great despair is revealed in these two sentences from Nietzsche's draft notes to Will to Power(1886-8).

"It has now lasted ten years: no more sound penetrates to me - a land without rain. A man must have a vast amount of humanity at his disposal in order to pine away in such a drought."

[Hayel Barakat هايل بركات · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب لافت عن نيتشه

نيتشه كان من أبرز الممهّدين لعلم النفس وكان عالم لغويات متميزاً. كان متشائم ومنعزل الى حد بعيد. يكره الخلطة ويستحقر الدين، يكره النساء وتكلم عن الحب والحقيقة والاخلاق.
تطرق الكاتب في هذا الكتاب للتحدث عن فيلسوف اثار لغطاً واسعاً بعد موته. في اراءه عن النفس والحب والجنس، مما أدى الى تغير جذري في مسلك علم النفس المعاصر.

سيجموند فرويد ترجم فلسفة نيتشه الى علم سيكولوجي معاصر أثر في سير العلم النفسي القائم حالياً. االكتاب يوضح اهم اراء فلسفة نيتشه التي صاغها بعد تأثره بفليسوف التشاؤم (شوبنهور) ، فالكتاب مقسم الى فقرات مختصرة وملخصة لاهم اراء هذه الفيلسوف بالاضافة الى العديد من الصور الكاريكتورية التي تصور الفكرة ببساطة.

حقيقةً، لا أحب اراء نيتشه في الاخلاق والارادة والخير والشر، لأني اشعر بأنه متطرف جدا في هذه الاراء من انكار وتشائم وعزلة مبنية على عقدته النفسية. لكن اراءه في التحليل النفسي واللغوي لها قيمة واضحة في الحكم المعاصر على البشر.

[Jannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

.قبل البدء بكتاب هكذا تكلم زرادشت اردت ان اعزز معرفتي بفلسفة نيتشة من خلال هذا الكتاب
كتاب شامل وسهل يقدم لك اهم افكار الفلسفة النتشوية والوجودية الالحادية
تطرق بقدر ضئيل على نشأة نيتشة وكيف كانت لها تاثير في كرهه للنساء

ومن بعض معتقداته
اولاَ يؤمن نيتشة أن الفضيلة والاخلاق يخلقها الانسان ويقرر ما هو فاضل واخلاقي حسب مصلحته وانعكاس الافعال عليه مثلا نحن نقرر ان فلان فاضل لا.ن فلان لم يؤذي وجودنا

ثانياً يقول نيتشة ان الانسان لا يكتفي ن المعرفة وهو بطيعه متعطش لها وهذا ما سيهلكه

ثالثًا لا يوجد معنى للوجود واننا نحن من نخلق معنى لوجودنا ومعاناتنا

رابعاً يعتقد ان الانسان عليه ان يتغلب على نفسه لنصل لمرتبة الانسان الاعلى

خامساً اذا كنا نريد ان ننشئ شيئاً جديدا علينا ان نتخلص من التاريخ بمغنى اننا لن نستطيع الابتكار ونحن مشغولون بالماضي وعلينا ان نشك ونسألأ في كل المواضيع التي تم اكتشافها في الماضي اي ان نيتئةمن دعات التفكيكية

سادساً يحتقر نيتشة الشفقة والضعف واي فعل منافي لغريزة الوجود واي شيئ يبرر هذه الافعال

[Danny Druid · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book I read by Nietzsche was Thus Spake Zarathustra. At the end of my edition of the book there was an essay that said that Thus Spake Zarathustra is the most inaccessible of Nietzsche's works, and it should be read only after having read the rest of his body of work. Gee, would have liked to know that beforehand!

That being said, I still enjoyed Thus Spake Zarathustra immensely, even though I did not agree with its opinions all of the time. Ever since I read it I was looking for a book that would be considered a great introduction to Nietzsche's works. In this short little graphic novel-style book of excerpts and illustrations I have found it.

Each page averages perhaps three sentences, and also has a drawing to accompany them. The drawings in this book are superb. I was skeptical that a graphic novel-style introduction to a philosopher would work but it really does in a peculiar way. The illustrations are all very gritty without being overly so, which creates a nice atmosphere to read Nietzsche in.

The first couple of pages are taken up by a little introduction to Nietzsche's life, which was very interesting, and from then on almost every page is a different one of his ideas or points summarized.

In fact, this book does such a good job of summarizing Nietzsche's philosophy that you could easily blaze through the book and end up absorbing nothing. The proper way to read this book is to read it very slowly and carefully, and at the end of every idea that is presented you should ask yourself if you understand it and rather or not you agree.

If you read it the proper way than much intellectual stimulation is to be had, since I can't imagine there isn't a single modern person who won't be challenged by Nietzsche. He criticizes every dearly held truth: Science, Morality, Religion, Equality, the State... if you haven't been challenged by Nietzsche, you haven' been reading him right!

And regardless of rather or not you agree with him, his ideas are always worth considering and are always cleverly thought-out.

All in all, an extremely enjoyable read. I look forward to going back and reading Thus Spake Zarathustra one day, and reading the rest of Nietzsche's works!

[Tim Pendry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is part of a series of graphic accounts of significant modern philosophers and ideas. The original idea behind the series was that you could educate through a combination of image and crisp short summaries of the life and history of complicated people and concepts.

This is both absurd and helpful. None of these books (largely produced in the post-modern fervour of the 1990s) can do more than skim the surface of a subject. Ideas can be so foreshortened that they are meaningless to the uneducated subject. The graphics are often crude but they serve their purpose, only rarely adding to the obscurities instead of enlightening us.

On the other hand, they offer two hours (approximately) of comic book summary of the main tenets of a thinker or movement with valuable pointers to further reading or study. They are very useful and entertaining in that context.

To a great extent, they have been superseded by the internet. Wikipedia and a basic Google search can deliver similar short reliable summaries with links at the click of a mouse but they still have their role in opening up the minds of many people who would never otherwise come up against these ideas.

Personally, I am a great admirer of Nietzsche who, though not flawless, provided us with some very fundamental insights into human psychology and engaged deeply with some of the toughest metaphysical and other philosophical problems encountered in Western philosophy.

We have long since left Marx and Freud behind, largely because of the excesses of their followers, but we have scarcely touched the surface of Nietzsche's contribution to thought even if his analyses may never be fully acceptable in 'polite society'. He is the most inconvenient of philosophers.

There is no point in summarising a summary account of his life and thinking. I have my own theory of his 'madness' (about which, of course, doubts have been raised) so if you are not interested in this, do not read on and just make a judgement on the book on the basis of your need.

The probability is of a serious nervous breakdown and mental instability but it strikes me that it is not accidental that it was triggered by a horse being beaten by a man in public.

Nietzsche's thought derived in part from his absolute refusal to compromise in trying to understand the reality of 'herd' behaviour (in effect, social psychology) and in communicating his findings about that behaviour to a world that, by his own analysis, had too much at stake in seeing the bones beneath the skin.

It was not a truly free society - an intellectual elite acted as a thin veneer of public morality and of ideology within a system that remained fundamentally brutal in its demands for service from its members. The masters, indeed, had become slaves to their slaves in order to maintain order, both social and cultural.

Nietzsche was the liberationist of the individual against this system but was quite definitely one without much of an understanding of the components of the 'herd' outside his class. He thought that a man of the elite (he is ambiguous about women) could liberate himself from the obligations imposed by the collective from below without perhaps understanding that the elite had a great deal of material interest in creating this system of self-policing in a complex industrial society. Unlike Marx, Nietzsche clearly did not understand how industrial society was different from the pagan world of the past.

Within such a bourgeois culture, faced with a threat from within their own community, people like Nietzsche are handled not through attack but through a policy of isolation - as inconvenient and 'not to the point'.

This how the intelligentsia operates in any case, through systematic exclusion of those who do not accept the prevailing ideology. I am sure that many fine minds, with perhaps similar if much less developed ideas, have languished in obscurity unable, without leisure, to record their thinking, even in the lower ranks of bourgeois Germany.

Nietzsche was both lucky and unlucky in living at the cusp of a new age. On the one hand, there was sufficient freedom from cultural authority to enable free expression. On the other, there was an insufficient plurality of cultural communications for that free expression, at least in his life time, that might counter the dead weight of the existing German elite.

Part of Nietzsche's famous breach with Wagner derived from anger at the great artist's slow and steady absorption into this dominant culture rather than challenge it with a new 'pagan' affirmation of life. Wagner abandoned the Nibelungenlied for Parzifal.

Nietzsche can occasionally sound as if he is pessimistic in this context (which is certainly the view of most persons faced with the grim Doctrine of the Eternal Return) but, in fact, his entire work cannot be understood except as an attempt to affirm life in the face of the much grimmer pessimism of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's miserabilism might be regarded as the natural thinking response to the flummery of Christian duty but one that, as in Wagner's case, equally permitted submission to its demands. Amongst the elaborate lies we weave to keep ourselves 'sane', Wagner appeared to choose Schopenhauerian negation and Nietzsche never forgave him for this.

Nietzsche used up vasts amount of psychic energy in seeking out his own 'truth' (he never accepted that there could be a 'Truth') and his 'truth', which was based on a rigorous stripping away of layers of social illusion and convenient irrationalities (including the illusion of rationality itself), could only have value either to someone in a similar position to him (a bourgeois mind with a mission) or to a society that felt itself free to experiment with freedom. Nietzsche took his vision, often writing his books in a matter of days after months of cogitation, and laid it out remorselessly to his (then) non-readers in a drive for self-exploration that a critic might consider as neurotic in itself.

His thinking was a necessity, not a desire, and the resultant body of work, obscure though it may be in places, is one of the greatest creative uses of the mind in human history. It proved a revolution in thinking that spread first amongst intellectuals overseas, then returned to Germany in a bastardised form (irrelevant to all those truly interested in the thought). Once purged of its more absurd followers, bit ecame a central source for nearly all modern continental philosophy and for a critique of power that (in my view) has now become truly salient in the social conditions arising from rapid change in the technology of communications.

The point is that Nietzsche described the social world more accurately than any preceding philosopher and placed it in a metaphysical context. His observations now seem in closest accord with the dark findings of the cognitive scientists and the social psychologists about how we humans actually operate and command the world.

Many Enlightenment-trained intellectuals will run around like frightened rabbits and then sink into a gloom at Milgram's experiments or the Holocaust as if their thinking will change anything about these things. Nietzsche would not have been surprised in either case for it is just how he saw that the 'herd' operates and the educated elite responds. Even now, Western liberal thinking has still not come to terms with the death of Reason as substitute for Revelation and is turning to 'nudge' as its last desperate fling at dealing with inconvenient truths.

Where he was lucky in his legacy is precisely in not being acceptable too soon. Marx saw Marxism boom and bust as it seized power, perverted power and then died because Marx's undoubted insights were hobbled by Engels' scientific materialism. Freud was to have a similar problem with Freudians who became sucked, like Marxists, into complex and fixed ideologies of mind that soon came unstuck, in a perverse reversal of what happened to Marxism, by not being scientific enough!

Nietzche, on the other hand, was followed initially by maniacs who seriously perverted his message (the malign racial nationalism of his sister and of German radical nationalists) but who did this to such a ridiculous degree that his work not merely survived but emerged strengthened. 'For what does not kill, strengthens' in his often quoted aphorism. Nietzsche's approach to life survives precisely because it is individualistic and anti-ideological. It cannot be systematised like Marxism yet it embodies its critique of Reason in the terms of reasoning itself. It out-reasons Reason and brilliantly and entertainingly at that.

This will soon bring us back to the flogged horse, so be patient. Because the flaw in Nietzsche's thinking arises from the conditions in which he did his thinking. You must imagine a man isolated but following the logic of his own thought in a way that others might have considered 'mad' well before his diagnosed 'madness'. Yet the brilliance and power of reasoning and determination could not permit such a judgement reasonably while he still thought and wrote. However, this man may have been hard on the human race's capacity for illusion but he was also hard on himself.

He knew the logic of the situation. He was seeing into the heart of the human condition. Evolution must eventually see humanity negate itself completely in its illusions (as many post-modern French thinkers seem to suggest is happening) or 'become' something else. This latter is the real 'trans-human' message behind the 'ubermensch', an individual transformation that evolves into a species-transformation or else sees humanity as an evolutionary dead end for humanity as a whole. Some may now expect the 'ubermensch' to be found in the world of artificial intelligence, raising the interesting conundrum of which sort of negation we might choose in the long run - spiritual or physical.

Whether he saw himself as an 'ubermensch' is unclear. It is unlikely. He was a prophet of the new type like his Zarathustra, a man crying 'God is dead' in a world that thought him 'mad'. And so we come to his fundamental flaw. He rightly castigated 'compassion'. He was right to do so in two senses. First, as the psychic vampirism of the liberal or Christian or progressive with power in hand whose 'compassion' is a form of power relation, denying the rights of the victim to be anything other than a victim. Second, in the Buddhist sense, of a distanced 'compassion' for the world, a 'compassion' which is the negation of existence, a refusal to engage in life.

In his determination to call the tune on the 'slave mentality' and the life-negating aspects of these two types of compassion, which are really forms of self-centred victimisation of others and of oneself respectively, he hardened himself and he forgot a third form of compassion. There was no energy left for this compassion and no insight into the self to see its necessity. This is the third form of compassion, one that arises from the Will to Power where another or others becomes existentially chosen, without illusion, to become part of oneself yet with respect for their own autonomy. It is, in short, 'love'. Poor Nietzsche never seems to have had the chance to experience this sense of worlds entwined and of the interconnection between equals that goes far beyond the nonsense of modern romanticism.

In his one big blind spot, he did not understand just how much his Will to Power was bound up with the libido (where we are indebted to Freud in raising its presence as unconscious drive). This is the energy designed to acquire 'more' and make oneself whole - being social animals, this includes relations with others. All relations with others are relations of power but, at a certain point, we can decide ourselves whether they are relations of power that are inherited, especially inherited by our slavish internal needs created by society for society (as in Christian cultural repression), or they are relations of power that we create and in which our true nature is best expressed by having relations of power that are calibrated to be as equal as possible. Why? Because that is how we get our greatest pleasure, conversing within an aristocracy of equals (not materially but existentially).

By the time of his madness, Nietzsche will have been very isolated and lonely. There was no love in his life. No interconnection. Certainly no aristocracy of existential equals. Nor could he expect such an aristocracy to emerge in his life time - indeed, one may be emerging only now with new forms of communication. When he saw that horse beaten (I surmise), he saw not merely himself beaten but the raw misery of a world in which one man may speak the truth of what is to come and yet know that no-one will understand until he is long dead (if at all). Worse, by the doctrine of the eternal return, his life would be an eternal round of such existential lonelinesses. This does not negate his affirmation of life but his surge of compassion for that horse is a rising up of compassion for a humanity that does not 'get it' and for himself as the person who does and is before his time.

Given everything that had gone before, his only 'choice' is an assumed or actual madness. In a parody of the Christian message which he excoriated mercilessly, Nietzsche is 'crucified' on the cross of his own humanity.

[Ardalan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book started well and lived up to my expectations until half of it but, the more It went toward ending the more difficult and vague it got for me and at the end where author threw the postmodern thinkers to the story, the explanations were insufficient . maybe it's because he planned to keep the book short but it lacked the explanations one needs to grasp the concepts...

چند ده صفحه بیشتر در ترجمه آقای رودبندی بیشتر پیش نرفته بودم که فکر مقابله با متن اصلی به ذهنم خطور کرد و اونجا بود که متن انگلیسیش دیگه کنار نرفت! نمی گم ترجمه بدی شده بود اما با ترجمه ایده آل فاصله داشت یک ترجمه دیگر از اثر هم اینجا دیدم که نمی دونم چطوره

[Paul Dembina · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informative run through of Nietzscheian philosophy. I came to this knowing virtually nothing and ended up knowing something.
One criticism I have is that this series of books worked best when the text and pictures worked together to aid understanding. With this particular book I didn't think the (basic) illustrations added very much

[Jigar Brahmbhatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful if you want a quick taste of all his ideas, make a list of those that interest you the most, and dig them further in more scholarly books. Here are some random jottings:

1) Kant epitomized the tradition of thought going back to Plato which seeks knowledge of final truths beyond the confines of our daily experience, an underlying timeless reality (like Schopenhauer’s idea of Will). This conception of truth wants to transcend the particular facts of any culture or individual or indeed history itself. Kant describes this domain of timeless truth as noumena (things in themselves) opposing it to phenomena (things as they appear to our senses).

2) Because we are confined to the use of reason and sensory perception, we can never know the noumenal world. Yet, Kant still insists that such a world exists. He thinks we are excluded from it by our senses, which, like, rose-tinted spectacles, present everything to us under various fixed categories – time, space, causality – from which we cannot escape.

3) So Kant limits his inquiry to the question of what we can reliably know within the above-described limits.

4) What separates Nietzsche from Kant is the belief in Becoming. A need for a fixed and timeless universe makes no sense at all; it is simply "the resentment of the metaphysicians against the real". (This idea of "Becoming" will later produce Nietzsche's maxim "Become what you are" - the notorious symbol of the "Superman".)

5) Research will show us that there are moralities but not "morality" – no timeless realm where the "goodness" and "truth" of a Plato or a Christ can reign 'happily forever.” This will lead us finally to the hardest of truths concerning morality in Beyond Good and Evil (1886), "There are no moral phenomena at all, only a moral interpretation of phenomena ..."

6) For example, let's consider how we regard a person as being virtuous. A virtuous (i.e., good) person is praised by others for the good he does to them. The virtues - obedience, chastity, justness, industriousness, etc. - will actually harm the person who possesses them! "If you possess a virtue ... you are its victim!" Thus, we praise virtue in others because we derive advantages from it.

7) Nietzsche's thoughts on scientific inquiry are every bit as challenging as his views on morality and religion. Science as an "absolute value" – as a "new religion" for our Godless age - is heavily criticized. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake makes as little sense as the pursuit of goodness for its own sake, and can be just as harmful. If we ask "goodness for what purpose?", so we must also insist on knowledge for what purpose? The scientist too often behaves as the servant of knowledge; instead let knowledge be the servant of man. “There are a lot of things I do not wish to know. Wisdom sets a limit to knowledge too” – wrote Nietzsche.

8) What we have achieved through science are descriptions of greater and greater complexity and sophistication. But we have “explained” nothing. Such phenomena remain as magical to us today as they did to the most primitive human beings.

9) We describe a cause as producing an effect, but this is a crude duality, as the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-76) had pointed out. Causality is a useful human tool for picturing a process of events – but nothing more. Case and effect probably never occurs – in reality there stands before us a continuum of which we isolate a couple of pieces … we do not “see” cause, we “infer” it.

10) So, if we chop up the endless continuum at the world into manageable pieces for our digestion, let us not imagine that the menu we prepare for ourselves is the only, or even the tastiest, one. Yet the hubris of science insists that it is!

11) "A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great men. Yes, and then to get round them!" A struggle, not for existence (Darwin), but rather a struggle for greatness - and with that, a struggle for power. This highly undemocratic view of humanity as a kind of "raw material" out of which a few great individuals will emerge, leads to the question of Nietzsche's political views, which are far from ordinary ... (the notion of superman?)

12) Twilight of the Idols well exemplifies Nietzsche's method of irony, philosophizing "with the hammer as with a tuning-fork". Here we find his famous paradox: "I fear we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in grammar . . ." This, in a few words, sums up Jacques Derrida's programme of deconstruction, that is, his attack on the Western tradition of "Iogocentrism". Nietzsche had always criticized the illusion that the existence of a word guarantees the truth of what the word refers to.

13) Nietzsche also provides the source of another influential "postmodern" idea, Jean Baudrillard's notion of the simulacrum or the nullification of reality itself as hyper-reality. In a single page, Nietzsche traces the six stages: How the "Real World" at last Became a Myth. The "real world" (or the "History of an Error") which begins with Plato's Idealism, and passes on to Christianity, Kantianism, Logical Positivism, becomes increasingly unknown, until it is of no use, superfluous, and is finally abolished. "We have abolished the real world: what world is left? The apparent world perhaps? ..."

14) Nietzsche's call for a "revaluation of all values" is a pre-figurement of Jacques Derrida's strategy of disruption in philosophy which he named deconstruction. Deconstruction is a notoriously slippery term: it is in fact undecidable. Derrida (1930-2004) himself suggested that deconstruction should be described as a "suspicion against thinking, what is the essence of?" In this sense, it is an attack on the Western metaphysical tradition of logo-centrism which seeks a single, timeless and fixed point of origin for truth. Such a declaration of war finds its precedent in Nietzsche's "principle of suspicion".

15) Nietzsche's writings in their use of irony, playful paradox and disruption of classical logic are a model for Derrida's proposal of deconstruction. Both thinkers agree that the age-old "dream of a foundational truth" must finally be relinquished. If one can truly understand why there cannot be a "Nietzschean" philosophy, then it will become clear why Derrida insists that deconstruction must not become deconstructionism. It must not surrender to becoming a rule-governed method, a foundation. "I'd say that deconstruction loses nothing from admitting that it is impossible."

[بسمة · Rating 4 out of 5]

⚠️أقول وأكرر قولي، كل ما ورد في هذه المراجعة إنما هو استرجاع بسيط لأفكار نيتشه الواردة بالكتاب، وليست بالضرورة قناعتي الشخصية!
لنبدأ بسم الله.

الكتاب على كونه مبسطًا، يحمل قدرًا لا بأس به من الغموض وعدم الوضوح، وهذا مصدره نيتشه وليس العاملين على الكتاب -عملوا اللي عليهم وزيادة-

Music gives that image a supreme significance. Concepts, images
and feelings all gain a heightened significance under the influence of

music. Music, then, can give birth to myth,“

النقاط الواردة بالمراجعة:

١. التعليم
٢. الثقافة.
٣. السعي إلى المعرفة.
٤. مواقف متعددة
٥. نظرية الSuperman
٦. نبذة عن رأيه في الأخلاق
٧. نبذة عن رأيه في الأديان
٨. نبذه عن رأيه في الضمير
——————————————————

[١] تناول موضوع التعليم مثلاً، وأنه أصبح عملية حشوٍ تاريخي للفرد، بحيث يصبح الفرد "المتعلم" —بهذا المصطلح المتعارف عليه، أقل إبداعا وتفردا.

"History is a dead weight on the present."

[٢] دعى للتساؤل وإعادة النظر في الثقافة الموروثة تاريخياً لمستقبل أكثر إبداعًا وتفردًا.

[٣] وذكر أن السعى إلى المعرفة لمجرد السعي إلى المعرفة، هو كالسعي إلى الخير لمجرد السعي إلى الخير، ربما لا يكون نافعاً للبشرية وربما تسبب خطرًا عليها. فمن الأفضل توظيف المعرفة للإنسان وليس العكس.

"Any truth which threatens life is no truth at all. It is an error"
—Niezsche

——————————————————

[٤]
يفرق نيتشه بين مصطلحين، وهما description و explanation: فنحن نستطيع الأولى ونعجز عن الأخرى.

We're being more complex and sophisticated when it comes to description.

فنحن نستطيع مثلاً شرح الموسيقى وأصواتها، وكيفية اصدارها، إلا أننا نعجز عن تفسير هذه الظاهرة الساحرة، مثلنا مثل الإنسان البدائي.

——————————————————

ونجد أننا أمام رجل عظيم، فائق التركيز، ويعيش التجربة بأعمق الدرجات.
فنجد أنه كتب Thus Spake Zarathustra في عشرة أيام فقط! واستغرقت كتابة "The Genealogy of Morals" مدة خمسة عشر يوماً فقط.



نقد نيتشه للفلاسفة، لا يحط من قدرهم، وإنما أراد أن يعترفوا أنهم يبحثون عن الحقيقة "لاستفساراتهم".

تحدث عن جنون الجماهير،

"Madness is something rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, peoples, ages, it is the rule."

——————————————————

[٥] آمن بفكرة الSuperman، وأن الرغبة في القوة The Will to Power تعارض بشكل أساسي رغبة الإنسان في الحياة أو تعرضها للخطر، إلا أن المرء يشعر بها باختلافات متفاوتة الدرجة. وأنها لازمة للSuperman.
وكيف -بالنسبة إلى نظرية التطور- أن الإنسان الحالي أكثر تقدماً وقوى وذكاءا من البشري القرد، فإن الsuperman هو كذلك بالنسبة إلى الإنسان الحالي.
——————————————————

[٦] تحدث عن نوعين من الأخلاق Ethics، الأولى أخلاق الطبقة العليا/الأشراف Noble Ethics والأخرى أخلاق الطبقة الدنيا/ العبيد Slave Ethics
فترى أن مصطلح الجيد والسئ يختلفان باختلاف نوع الأخلاق، فمثلاً في الطبقة الدنيا، ترى مصطلح الجيد "Good": هو المتواضع، العبد، الضعيف.
والشرير/السئ: هو من يخرج عن هذا التعريف، فيضر الأغلبية الضعيفة.
——————————————————

[٧] وهنا يأتي دور الدين المسيحي، حيث أخذ القساوسة الصفات الحسنة للطبقة العليا كال:
Pride, Boldness, Health
وأقنعوا عامة الشعب بمدى ذمومتها ، وتشجعهم على الزهد في المال، والملذات، والحياة بشكل عام "Anti-Life".

ويفسر اندفاع واستماع العامة لهم، أن العرض المقدم من قِبل الكنيسة كان لا يرد، حيث تخبرهم بأن الجميع متساوون أمام الرب، وأن معاناتهم الحالية تضمن لهم السعادة في الآخرة.
——————————————————

[٨] عن الضمير، يلخص رأيه هذا الاقتباس:

Conscience: coincides with the beginnings of social structure and law-making, which in turn depend on the repression of instinct and the development of rationality.

——————————————————

يتفق فكر Derida تحت عنوان Destruction مع مبدأ الشك التابع لنيتشه، حيث لا تكون الحقيقة مجرد نقطة واحدة ثابتة ودائمة كما هو مبدأ logo centrism. لهذا لم يتحولوا إلى foundations مبادئ أساسية: Destructionism or Nietzschean philosophy.



متحمس أقرأ من هذه السلسلة اصدارات مختلفة 👍

[Dyary Abubakr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nietzsche, he who can make your jaw drop while you read not a book of his, not a paragraph, but a single sentence, a single sentence of his can make you freeze and think for hours, for days.
because as he himself said: “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”. Nietzsche shakes every shackle on your unused brain, he dives into the depth of human mind, discovers the origin of every human feeling, fear, joy, and suffering.
this book was a beautiful and amazing introduction of Nietzsche, it truly makes you thankful for discovering him.
he can really help you understand yourself, even better to overcome yourself and become what he was hoping for, to become superhuman.

[Anh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nieztsche, một trong hai ông tổ của triết học hiện sinh, dường như là con người của mâu thuẫn và các cực đối lập.
Sinh ra trong một trong gia đình thấm đẫm đạo lý Thiên Chúa, có truyền thống làm mục sư, vậy mà gần như cả cuộc đời, Nietsche dành để phản bác những lời răn dạy và triết lý của Thiên Chúa giáo, để lên án giáo hội, để tuyên bố rằng God is dead.
Trở thành giáo sư ngôn ngữ của trường đại học Basel khi mới chỉ 24 tuổi, khi còn chưa hoàn thành chương trình tiến sĩ, Nietzsche lại là con người căm ghét đời sống học thuật tháp ngà đạo mạo.
Tuy là một nhà triết học, Nietzsche ác cảm với triết học kinh viện thông thường, ác cảm với việc đề cao cách tư duy logic chặt chẽ, tư duy khoa học và hệ thống, đè nén cảm xúc và trải nghiệm cá nhân.
Nietzsche đề cao hình tượng Übermensch (Superman) trong các tác phẩm của mình, một hình ảnh con người của thời đại mới, vượt qua giới hạn của bản thân cả về thể chất lẫn tinh thần, nhưng chính ông, trong thực tế, lại là một con người ốm yếu với đủ thứ bệnh tật.
Nietzsche ca ngợi việc vượt qua khó khăn gian khổ, vượt qua các giới hạn (Man is something that should be overcome), ca ngợi sức mạnh tinh thần, nhưng cũng chính ông là người đau khổ quằn quại vì thất tình, đến mức gần như không còn thấy lý do để tiếp tục sống.
Một nhà triết học cho rằng trong nhiều trường hợp không nên để tính yếu đuối, nhu mì, thương người, đồng cảm với đồng loại làm cản trở sự phát triển, sự thăng tiến của bản thân. Nhưng cũng chính nhà triết học đó, đã lao vào ôm lấy con ngựa đang ngã quỵ vì bị người chạy xe đánh đập. Chính nhà triết học đó đã hét lớn khi ôm lấy con ngựa: "I understand you".
Một nhà triết học viết những lời lẽ nặng nề máu lửa để chỉ trích con người và xã hội đương thời, lại cũng chính là người để Zarathustra bộc lộ đầy cảm xúc rằng "I love mankind", khi được hỏi lý do cho việc hạ sơn trở về xã hội.
Một con người sống tràn đầy tình cảm, giàu cảm xúc, khao khát yêu đương, nhưng lại thất bại thảm hại trong tình trường, liên tục bị khước từ, đến mức phải giải tỏa bằng cách đến nhà thổ để rồi mắc bệnh giang mai, và theo như lời Richard Wagner, phải thủ dâm một cách quá độ.
Ôi Nietzsche tội nghiệp, ôi Nietzsche khốn khổ. Nhưng mình dám chắc, nếu ai đó hỏi ông có muốn lặp lại cuộc đời đó hàng trăm hàng nghìn, thậm chí vô hạn lần (eternal recurrence), với đầy đủ những niềm vui và thống khổ chính xác đến từng chi tiết (mà có lẽ thống khổ nhiều hơn niềm vui) đó hay không, câu trả lời của Nietzsche sẽ luôn là một tiếng Yes khảng khái vui tươi và tràn ngập hạnh phúc. Vì bởi "“Have you ever said Yes to a single joy? O my friends, then you have said Yes too to all woe. All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored; if ever you wanted one thing twice, if ever you said, "You please me, happiness! Abide, moment!" then you wanted all back. All anew, all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored--oh then you loved the world. Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore; and to woe too, you say: go, but return! For all joy wants--eternity.”

[Rajiv Ashrafi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't tell you just how brilliant this book is. Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the greatest philosophers of all time, and his ideas can be difficult to understand. He has also produced a lot of books, which are dense and rife with allegories, philosophical thoughts, and reflections on life, reality, and religion, among other things. This book, a collaboration by Gane and Piero, does an amazing work of condensing his thoughts into an accessible format.

The text is clear, sharp, and easy to understand. It is extremely concise--in fact, I don't think I've seen one word being wasted--and exact. Although it may be easy to read, the text is crammed with ideas and information that will blow your mind with every turn of the page. Simply put, it's an unbelievably thorough yet brief expedition through the mind of one of the greatest thinkers of our time.

Despite being a big fan of Nietzsche, I've only read Thus Spoke Zarathustra in detail (as a matter of fact, I did my dissertation on it). I'm not wholly unfamiliar with his other books, but this was a great introduction to the concepts and ideas Nietzsche raised through his bibliography. I can't say that I'm now conversant about Nietzsche, but I can proudly say that I'm now more learned than ever.

The illustrations are quite interesting. They are absurd little pieces that are used to support the text. Complement is the exact word with which they can be described. They don't overwhelm any of the text at any point, which is a great thing. I felt the caricatures of modern philosophers and thinkers were spot-on, yet they felt alien and too far-reaching at times.

Finally, I wholeheartedly recommend this book. If you love Nietzsche and need brief reminders of his concepts, keep this in your shelf. If you're looking to immerse yourself into the ocean that is Nietzsche, begin here. Either way, you won't lose.

[Nouru-éddine · Rating 3 out of 5]

«الرجل العميق يحتاج إلى أصدقاء ما لم يكن له إله، وأنا ليس لي إله ولا صديق.»

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Тагтаа паблишинг ер нь чанартай орчуулгууд хийдэг, түүний дээрээс энд нэр томъёо бүрийг монгол хэл дээр тайлбарласан нь их хэрэгтэй санагдлаа. Философи анхлан сонирхож буй залуус уншаарай. Хэдий нимгэн зурагт хөтөч боловч Ницше л бол Ницше, гүйлгэж унших хэрэггүй.
Ганц хоёр утга нь ойлгомжгүй илэрхийлэгдсэн өгүүлбэрүүдийг орчуулгын сул тал гэж ойлголоо. Жишээ нь: Мухар сүсгийн өчүүхэн л хэлтэрхий үлдсэн аваас өөрийгөө бүхний чадагч дээд хүчний амьд биелэл, элч зардас, зууч гэдэг санааг үгүйсгэхэд нэн бэрхтэй байх сан.

[Alexandru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to Nietzsche's ideas, which are becoming more relevant today.

P.S. At the end of the book the answer can be found on why Nietzsche being highly critical of German culture at that moment in time (Prussia's rise) and writing against anti-semitism, was mutilated by his sister after his death to become one of the Hitler's main author used for Mein Kempf.

[Castles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, perhaps a little bit too complicated for a simple introduction, but it made me curious, especially the last part of the book with the applications and influence of Nietzsche's philosophy on our times.

[Paloma Meir · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Silke :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I now feel dumb

[Damien · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the exception of Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche books have always been a little difficult for me to really get into. But this is certainly a great overview of his ideas.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this while at the bookshop looking for something else. I liked the look of the cover so I picked it up and had a flick through. It is very pretty and very desirable. Introductory texts like this often pique my interest but my sense of pride, or machismo, makes me hesitate. The booming voice in my head says: not tough enough for the original material, Senor Quixote? And I am not. I've trudged through a couple of Nietzche's works and found it heavy going, not much of it stuck.

But I walked out with it anyway, having justified the purchase by calling it a Christmas present for my brother. He wouldn't mind if I read it gently before I wrapped it up.

I read it cover to cover in a couple of days and I got a lot out of it. Some of those ideas I half understood became a little more clear and I learnt a lot more about how N fits in with his contemporaries. But I don't think this book works best read like a novel. It's strength is in the way it neatly summarises his big ideas and points to where they come from in his other works. It is something I'd love to have on my shelf so I can quickly remind myself of the major themes and know where to find out more about them.

The format - comic pictures and text - works well for me. I'm no expert on graphic matters but I like the way the historical figures are given a bit of personality. Makes them memorable.

[Lina Okar · Rating 3 out of 5]

يعرض المؤلف في هذا الكتاب حياة نيتشه فلسفته أفكاره معتقداته ... و غيره الكثير و كل ذلك بأسلوب سلس توضيحيّ
يبيّن الكتاب كيف تأثر نيتشه بالمفكرين الآخرين أمثال فرويد و فاجنر و كيف أثّر في مسيرة الفكر البشري فلقد اعتاد القول : زمني لم يحن بعد , فبعض الناس يولدون بعد موتهم ...
لينتشه افكار عديدة واجهت صعوبات كثيرة في فهم كل ما يرمي اليه ..
نظرته للموسيقى جذبتني فقد قال : تتميّز الموسيقى عن بقيّة الفنون الأخرى بواقعة أنّها ليست من الظاهرة إنمّا هي نسخة مباشرة من الإرادة ذاتها ...
قد تجد تناقضات عديدة في أقواله .. وحيد تارةً يشتهي رفقة البشر و تارةً يعتبرهم لا يصلون إلى مستواه
نيتسه عظيم و غريب و هنا تكمن عظمته

[Mahmoud Abdel samie]

وين المشكلة ؟ قرأت نصفه وتوقفت، اعتقد كتب نيتشه تتكون من مقولات فقط وهو ما يسميه الحكمة الموجزة، يقول نيتشه" اكتب بدمك والقارئ الحذق وحده من سيفهم"،ويقول "الحكمة الموجزة هى صور من الأزل، وما اطمح إليه أن أقول ف عشر جمل ما يقوله غيرى ف كتاب" ، لذلك كتبه تحتاج لتفسير اطول من الكتاب ذاته، عموماً الكتاب أكثره مقولات لنيتشه مع تفسير شحيح وصور كثيرة، لكن رغم التفسير، الكتاب صعب فى بعض الأجزاء-بالنسبالى- كبداية لنيتشه. يوماً ما سأعود لنيتشه خصوصاً انه مع شاوبنهاور اكتر فلاسفة انترستنج بالنسبالى حسب ما قرأت عنهم ف كتب سابقة.

[Scumbag Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction to Nietzsche's philosophy. The only thing I disliked about this book was the fact that the author completely misrepresented what Hitler meant in Mein Kampf when he said that politicians were usually expedient. Hitler was referring to the old politicians of Weimar Germany, not his own political party. But despite the blatant propaganda there, this was still very educational and useful.

[Fathy Sroor · Rating 4 out of 5]

سلسلة"أقدم لك" بصفة عامة تعتبر من السلاسل الموصى بها بشدة للمبتداين،في هذا الجزء تحديداً أجتهد المؤلفان في أدخال القارئ لعالم نيتشه المميز بسلام،و أظنهم نجحوا،لن أناقش أفكار نيتشه ألا بعد الأحتكاك به بشكل مباشر.

[Abhishek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The little philosophy I knew before reading this was primarily due to watching Crash Course Philosophy on YouTube, bingeing existentialistcomics.com and through general awareness.

The thing that strikes you about the book is that it doesn't go deep into Nietzsche's life like a traditional biography would have done instead of showing you the significant moments of his life and thoughts. This is surely a nod to Nietzsche where he laments the voluminous literature that is generated by Academia but that which lacks force and vitality. This has both advantages and disadvantages. Delving in deep would have made it a difficult read. The current format succeeds in showing some of Nietzsche's novel and revolutionary thoughts and their evolution. The lovely illustrations underscore the points and force you to ponder about them. Nietzsche's views on virtue, knowledge, culture, Ubermensch, Will to Power all find space here. His critique of Science are illuminating.

Some context and a deeper analysis of his thoughts, such as his post-feminist views, would have been useful for Nietzsche's times are far removed from ours.

Nietzsche makes this point that if reading a book doesn't move one to action, it is basically useless(or something along those lines). This book with Nietzsche's life-affirming values generated a certain anger in me and made me and continues to make me question certain aspects of my life.

[Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a pretty good solid intro for a lot of Nietzsche’s thoughts, some will be easier to grasp and comprehend thanks to the lucidity of Nietzsche’s prose, for example, The Death of God, Eternal Recurrence, Slave morality vs Master morality (the concept of the ascetic priest along with the implications on society), The Übermensch, and The Will to Power, just to name a few. I think where the book falls a bit flat is on his ideas of Knowledge, Truth, Ethics, critiques on Science and the State, The culprit, in my opinion is none other than Nietzsche himself since these areas seem to be the ones where he isn’t very clear and prefers the witty and clever contradictions that made him so attractive to read in the first place. Towards the end of the book, we move into how his philosophy affected mostly through misinterpretation and careless analysis, various social movements, the most famous being Nazism, and also some of the mid-20th century schools of thought such as Existentialism and Postmodernism.

[Wilde Sky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book recounts the life and ideas of a famous philosopher.

I found many of the concepts (and the direct quotes from the philosopher) in this book really fascinating – some of the narrative / writing (around the philosopher's concepts) was a bit ropey.

[Miss Chocolate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nisam se dugo bavila filozofijom, još od srednjoškolskih dana pa sam ovu knjigu uzela kao uvod u misli jednog od najintrigantnijih filozofa, ali meni je ona daleko od toga da je knjiga za početnike, štoviše, bila mi je prilično teška za pratiti i ne mogu reći da me nečemu posebnom naučila.