Martyrs to Truth: Reading Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

Thanks to our Patreon members for helping to make this episode possible. And we're now available on all the major podcasting platforms. You can find more information at the links below. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to chapter 2 of Nietze Beyond Good and Evil in which um I I actually have to say the next three sections I just love.

I mean, I'm interested in all of it. Some of it resonates, some of it's confusing. I just love the ideas that he presents in the next three sections. So, I might be hopelessly biased here.

So, so, so be be aware like I I I have a hard time uh not agreeing with much of what he says here. And he opens this up with what seems like criticism. He says, "In what strange simplification and falsification man lives, one can never one can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding them this marvel, how we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple. How we have been able to give our senses a passport to everything superficial.

Our thoughts a god-like desire for wanting pranks and wrong inferences. How from the beginning we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, hardiness and gaity in order to enjoy life. And so he starts with this. And remember, beyond good and evil, often what sounds like criticisms are not criticisms.

He's trying to move us past there. He's like, look, how do we enjoy ourselves? Look at the way people actually think. Look at the ideas they carry around.

Look at the way they look at the world. And and it's all wrong, right? [laughter] It's it's completely inaccurate, but we seem so happy so much of the time. So you know so this he thinks is this ignorance he says quite specifically is the foundation of knowledge.

It's from this base that knowledge rises. And so ignorance is not the opposite of knowledge. It's a necessary sort of bowl in which knowledge is held and developed and from which it grows. And since his his key is, you know, will to power, will to thrive, enjoyment of life, freespiritedness from the title of this chapter section, you know, what you you see is what with you know this notion ...