Welcome to Part Five of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. I’m reading from the Kaufmann edition, but you can find this text online, for example, Ian Johnston’s.

This section is titled “Natural History of Morals.”

In this section, Nietzsche again notes the limited vision (and limited self-understanding) of philosophers. He points out that every philosopher has “wanted to supply a rational foundation for morality … but morality itself, however, was accepted as a given.” He adds, “even apart form such claims … one can still always ask: what does such a claim tell us about the man who makes it?”

In section 188, Nietzsche says that morality, in any form, is a restraint against nature or reason. He says,

What is essential ‘in heaven and on earth’ seems to be, to say it once more, that there should be obedience over a long period of time and in a single direction: given that, something always develops, and has developed, for whose sake it is worth while to live on earth; for example, virtue, art, music, dance, reason, spirituality — something transfiguring, subtle, mad, and divine.

Of special interest to readers of this book blog, on which I review so many romance novels, is this passage from section 189:

“…it was precisely during the most Christian period of Europe and altogether only under the pressure of Christian value judgments that the sex drive sublimated itself into love (amour-passion).”

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Part Four of Beyond Good and Evil is Epigrams and Interludes. There is some good stuff here, but for me, as a reader, it tends to get overshadowed by the many problematic things Nietzsche has to say about women. Nietzsche could be a radical in many ways, but was also deeply conservative in his misogyny and elitism. Nietzsche’s view of women is more complicated than it sounds in what follows. To take just one example, he is the rare male philosopher who uses imagery of pregnancy and birth to describe philosophical and artistic creation. A recent book makes the case that “Nietzsche’s texts eliminate ‘man’ and ‘woman’ altogether” (ix), creating a space for the overcoming of binary sex and gender difference. I personally wouldn’t go that far, but there’s no question that feminists (like Luce Irigaray who said that her Marine Lover was “not a book on Nietzsche but with Nietzsche, who is for me a partner in a love relationship.” For more click here.) have found in Nietzsche both an ally and an antagonist. If you’re interested, here’s the reference:

Nietzsche on Gender: Beyond Man and Woman. By FRANCES NESBITT OPPEL. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.

And there’s the classic from a well-regarded Penn State series:

Kelly Oliver, Marilyn Pearsall, Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, Penn State Press, 1998.

And for fun:

“Are you visiting women? Do not forget your whip!” –from Thus Spake Zarathustra

(That’s a photo of Nietzsche and Paul Ree pulling a wagon carrying the whip-wielding Lou Andreas-Salome. More on the complex relationships between the three here.)
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