Twilight of the Idols, also referred to as “How to Philosophize with a Hammer,” is a book discussing philosophy written in 1888 by the renowned philosopher and philologist Friedrich Nietzsche and published in 1889. It is large in scope, discussing a wide variety of topics, from previous philosophers to the essential essence of morality.
Twilight of the Idols begins with Nietzsche’s assertion that being able to laugh at one’s situation is a fantastic demonstration of one’s strength. In his own words, “Maintaining cheerfulness in the midst of a gloomy affair, fraught with immeasurable responsibility, is no small feat; and yet what is needed more than cheerfulness?” (465). Nietzsche then writes that when it comes to invigorating people, war (I interpret this not as physical war, but as a war against oneself, a war of self improvement) is a good solution. He writes that “War has always been the great wisdom of all spirits who have become too inward, too profound,” for “even in a wound there is the power to heal” (465). Nietzsche then quotes the Latin phrase “Increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus,” which translates into “The spirits increase, vigor grows through a wound” (465). He then states that he is enraged when it comes to the prevalence of idols in the modern world, for people hide behind them for comfort to avoid self-reflection.
Nietzsche then gives 44 aphorisms. They are all thought provoking, and I will elaborate on those I greatly enjoy and appreciate in the following sentences. One of my favorites is how Nietzsche writes that “In our own wild nature we find the best recreation from our un-nature, from our spirituality” (467). That is, people who are suffering from byronic unhappiness and are disillusioned from life due to vigorous studying and reflection would probably do well to perform actions, not to merely think: Bertrand Russell wrote something like this in The Conquest of Happiness, in which he says that those who suffer from byronic unhappiness should do physical activity or even labor, for it reconnects them with their bodies. Indeed, I do greatly agree with this, for physical activity could greatly improve one’s mental and physical health, for idleness and a sedentary lifestyle have correlations with physical problems such as depression and fatigue. Nietzsche then writes “What? Is man merely a mistake of God’s? Or God merely a mistake of man’s?” (467). This is especially funny in that it comes from him, for he wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra that God died from his pity for humankind. If the quote is read from that angle, Nietzsche is indeed accurate. Nietzsche proceeds to write that life is a war in itself, and gives one of his most famed maxims: “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger” (467). This sentence is a core theme of his concept of the ubermensch, for although a person will experience undesirable experiences that may be ripe with suffering, they could change their attitude towards said suffering. Or as Epictetus would say, “It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” Nietzsche humorously compares philosophers to donkeys, writing that both groups are tragic in that they can strive and die of exhaustion from burdens that they are ultimately unable to abandon.
Nietzsche’s maxims continue, and he espouses the importance of perceived meaning, seeing how “If we have our own why of life, we shall get along with almost any how” (468). Nietzsche then discusses the flaws of any largely implemented system, for “The will to a system is a lack of integrity” (470). This is seen especially well when blind obedience is analyzed, for many otherwise normal people will do actions foreign to them while they are working for a large legal entity such as the government. Nietzsche’s misogyny is seen in aphorism 27, as he writes that “Women are considered profound. Why? Because one never fathoms their depths. Women aren’t even shallow” (470). He then writes of the ridiculousness of courtship, for women who have traits that are deemed masculine cause suitors to run away, while those who lack those traits are chased by them. That is, “If a woman has manly virtues, one feels like running away; and if she has no manly virtues, she herself runs away” (470). Nietzsche soon comes to write that many times very little is needed for happiness, as this is greatly encapsulated when it comes to music. Nietzsche writes his maxim that “Without music, life would be an error” (471). Nietzsche proceeds in the later sections of the aphorisms to ask the audience thought-provoking questions. For example, he asks the reader questions like “Are you genuine? Or merely an actor? A representative? Or that which is represented?”, “Are you one who looks on? Or one who lends a hand? Or one who looks away and walks off?”, and “Do you want to walk along? Or walk ahead? Or walk by yourself? One must know what one wants and that one wants” (472). Nietzsche implies that he asks these questions because he views himself as a psychologist, a view which has some decent backing. His last aphorism gives people life advice in that goals are essential to contentment, a feeling of achievement, and happiness: “The formula of my happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal” (473).
Nietzsche then proceeds to write in “The Problem of Socrates” that throughout most of human history to that point of time, the most intelligent people have viewed life as something negative, as something that doesn’t cover its sheer expense. “Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths-a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life” (473). Nietzsche describes that Socrates himself complained of life as he drank the hemlock. He states that these great thinkers came to the same conclusion not because life was inherently bad, but because the civilizations which they lived in were decadent and prevented people from affirming their lives through creative and productive outlets. Nietzsche states that although their opinions are understandable, life itself is not inherently good or bad, for it is impossible to estimate its value. There is, after all, no test to calculate the quality of a person’s life, and even now it is impossible to accurately measure the pleasure, suffering, and meaning of a person’s life. Nietzsche then attacks Socrates, writing that he belonged to the plebeians, and that he was ugly. He continues to deride him, writing that criminals are commonly evil. In Latin, this is written as “monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo,” or “monster in face, monster in soul” (475). Nietzsche states that everything about Socrates has been exaggerated, which gives him too much credit. He discusses the dialectic of Socrates, writing that he believed that Socrates used it to avenge himself on the ruling classes.
Nietzsche later discusses pure reason, stating that it is overcomplicated and overrated. That is, many people believed in the “apparent” world and the “true world.” The apparent world is the world we perceive with our senses - the apparent world is aptly named so, because our senses could be greatly mistaken. In fact, everything we experience can technically be false, an illusion, which technically discredits empirical evidence to a large degree. The true world, on the other hand, is the world around us beyond our perception. This is also nicknamed “the thing in itself,” and it is also argued that we cannot know the true world, for all we have at our disposal is empirical knowledge and our senses. Nietzsche criticizes all this, writing that “The ‘apparent’ world is the only one: the ‘true’ world is merely added by a lie,” seeing how Heraclitus was one of the few of the past asserted that “being is an empty fiction” (481). Nietzsche goes on to praise the sensory organs, for they are true wonders when rigorously analyzed. He writes that the nose, for instance, is “actually the most delicate instrument so far at our disposal” due to being “able to detect minimal differences of motion which even a spectroscope cannot detect” (481). Nietzsche firmly states his opinion regarding fields which don’t rely on empirical evidence or the validity of the senses: “The rest is miscarriage and not-yet-science-in other words, metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology-or formal science, a doctrine of signs, such as logic and that applied logic which is called mathematics. In them reality is not encountered at all, not even as a problem-no more than the question of the value of such a sign-convention as logic” (481).
Nietzsche provides his own criteria for analyzing the “true world,” and they are as follows: (1) “The reasons for which ‘this’ world has been characterized as ‘apparent’ are the very reasons which indicate its reality; any other kind of reality is absolutely indemonstrable,” (2) “The criteria which have been bestowed on the ‘true being’ of things are the criteria of not-being, of naught; the ‘true world’ has been constructed out of contradiction to the actual world: indeed an apparent world, insofar as it is merely a moral-optical illusion,” (3) “To invent fables about a world ‘other’ than this one has no meaning at all, unless an instinct of slander, detraction, and suspicion against life has gained the upper hand in us: in that case, we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of ‘another,’ a ‘better’ life,” and (4) “Any distinction between a ‘true’ and an ‘apparent’ world … is only a suggestion of decadence, a symptom of the decline of life. That the artist esteems appearance higher than reality is no objection to this proposition. For ‘appearance’ in this case means reality once more, only by way of selection, reinforcement, and correction. The tragic artist is no pessimist: he is precisely the one who says Yes to everything questionable, even to the terrible-he is Dionysian” (484). To simplify, Nietzsche states that talking about the thing-in-itself is a folly, for all the reasons people may have to believe it stems from the apparent world, not the “true” world. Furthermore, our expectations of some other world are measured in accordance with the one we currently inhabit. Third, Nietzsche maintains that those who believe in some other world are precisely utilizing a defence mechanism - they are using their belief in the unprovable and irrefutable as an escape. After all, if they enjoyed their lives and were able to find terrestrial meaning, why would they spend so much time thinking about a world that may not even exist? Fourth, those who truly esteem life care more about appearance than reality, seeing that appearance is part of reality.
Nietzsche proceeds to talk about how reality was slandered as fiction in “How the ‘True World’ Finally Became a Fable.” He describes that people’s intrinsic sense of control were greatly damaged when decadent values placing emphasis on another reality came into being, for a philosophy which once pressed people to enjoy life and to live in the moment was replaced by one which states that reality is unidentifiable, consequently creating a feeling of helplessness. Nietzsche moderates his stance, saying that pleasure should not be taken to extremes, as “All passions have a phase when they are merely disastrous, when they drag down their victim with the weight of stupidity” (486). He writes that religions such as Christianity which attempt to destroy passions are utterly stupid and ineffective in their actions, for they don’t even attempt moderation - instead of compromising, they firmly state that something is never to be done. Nietzsche compares the approach of Christianity and similar doctrines towards the passions as being akin to that of a bad dentist and a tooth. A good dentist, upon locating the problem, would treat the tooth with foresight, and would rarely remove it altogether. A bad dentist, on the other hand, would sever the tooth from his patient. Likewise, an intelligent doctrine will balance passion with responsibility. Nietzsche states that it was quite obvious that Christianity would fail in that regard, for Christianity grew in size in its fight “against the ‘intelligent’ in favor of the ‘poor in spirit.’ How could one expect from it an intelligent war against passion? The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, its ‘cure,’ is castratism,” seen in how it has never once asked “‘How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?’” (487). Nietzsche ends the paragraph with the following maxim: “But an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life” (487).
Nietzsche then writes humorously that those who believe in utterly destroying or repressing a passion are weak-willed individuals who have no sense of discipline or temperance. Indeed, “The same means in the fight against a craving-castration, extirpation-is instinctively chosen by those who are too weak-willed, too degenerate, to be able to impose moderation on themselves … Radical means are indispensable only for the degenerate; the weakness of the will-or, to speak more definitely, the inability not to respond to a stimulus-is itself merely another form of degeneration. The radical hostility, the deadly hostility against sensuality, is always a symptom to reflect on: It entitles us to suppositions concerning the total state of one who is excessive in this manner” (487). Nietzsche then writes that love is a feeling which is the manifestation of sensuality, while hostility is the feeling which is the manifestation of triumphing over one’s enemies. Nietzsche goes on to criticize modern values, writing that it was always defeatist and negative. That is, “Morality, as it has so far been understood-as it has in the end been formulated once more by Schopenhauer, as ‘negation of the will to life’-is the very instinct of decadence, which makes an imperative of itself. It says: ‘Perish!’ It is a condemnation pronounced by the condemned” (490-1).
Nietzsche soon comes to explain logical fallacies people make. One of the main ones is confusing cause and effect. Nietzsche talks about the book by a man named Cornaro in which he encourages them to follow his strict and frugal diet in order to maintain good health. While he wrote the book in goodwill, he mistook the cause for the effect - he did indeed live a long life while eating little food, but that was because his metabolism was slower than the usual; if he ate more, he would have become physically ill. Nietzsche writes that “whoever is no carp not only does well to eat properly, but needs to. A scholar in our time, with his rapid consumption of nervous energy, would simply destroy himself with Cornaro’s diet” (492-3). Nietzsche then states that many religions state that civilizations start declining when people overindulge in luxury. He corrects that luxury stems from the collapsing of a civilization, as people try to escape reality through excessive sensuality. Furthermore, if a young person was to become sick, many would see it was due to some disease, not due to the fact that they might have been malnourished due to poverty prior, or that his genetics were simply faulty. Nietzsche states that this fallacy of causation pervades reality, as seen in morality and religion. He also says that just because a belief feels good doesn’t add to its credibility, seeing how pleasurable feelings are not evidence of some truth. Nietzsche writes powerfully that humanity has a common delusion - that of a meaning, an end. Humanity commonly wishes to believe that it has some higher purpose, that there is an end goal, while it is quite clear that there is none, as seen in how the world functions. As Nietzsche wrote, “The fatality of his essence is not to be disentangled from the fatality of all that has been and will be. Man is not the effect of some special purpose, of a will, and end; nor is he the object of an attempt to attain an ‘ideal of morality.’ It is absurd to wish to devolve one’s essence on some end or other. We have invented the concept of ‘end’: in reality there is no end” (500). Nietzsche states that those who believed in a divine entity had given up their rational faculties, seeing how the “prima causa”/first cause argument makes no sense when taken far enough. Therefore, people must “deny the responsibility in God,” for “only thereby do we redeem the world” (501).
Nietzsche then writes that philosophers should not allow themselves to be shackled by previous moral systems, but to create their own. That is, they must go beyond good and evil, seeing that objective moral facts are completely nonexistent. In Nietzsche’s own words, philosophers should view “the illusion of moral judgement beneath” themselves, as well as stating that “Morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena-more precisely, a misinterpretation. Moral judgements, like religious ones, belong to a stage of ignorance at which the very concept of the real and the distinction between what is real and imaginary, are still lacking; thus ‘truth,’ at this stage, designates all sort of things which we today call ‘imaginings.’” (501). Nietzsche then writes that many moralists have had the misguided belief that they could somehow “improve” humanity. What they have done is quite the opposite, for they have created a domesticated human being, someone whose inner turmoil, therefore their inner greatness, has been utterly crushed. Nietzsche states that calling this “taming” of humankind an improvement is an absurd mockery, for when animals are domesticated, “They are weakened, they are made less harmful, and through the depressive effect of fear, through pain, through wounds, and through hunger they become sickly beasts. It is no different with the tamed man whom the priest has ‘improved.’” (502). He describes Christianity as being the ultimate domesticator of humankind, for they have turned previously healthy heathens who loved life into “sinners,” a miscarriage of nature - the previously exuberant person “was stuck in a cage, imprisoned among all sorts of terrible concepts. And there he lay, sick, miserable, malevolent against himself: full of hatred against the springs of life, full of suspicion against all that was still strong and happy. In short, a ‘Christian.’” (502). Nietzsche describes that all the attempts made by Abrahamic morality to improve humankind “were through and through immoral” (505).
Nietzsche soon writes about the Germans, writing that Germany was once great, but upon acquiring power, took good times for granted, subsequently losing their minds, wasting away in an intellectual latrine. Nietzsche introduces the maxim that “power makes stupid,” writing how the Germans “are now bored with the spirit, the Germans now mistrust the spirit; politics swallows up all serious concern for really spiritual matters” (506). Nietzsche then entertainingly writes that as he looks at German culture, he is seized with a sense of disgust, for the books being published at that point in time were the very definitions of mediocrity. Nietzsche blames the “two great European narcotics,” “alcohol and Christianity,” for rotting Germany away, writing that it had abused those two great addictions to a massive degree. He then adds a third barrier to Germany’s progress, which is the bombastic, jingoistic music being produced. Nietzsche writes that Germany’s education system is a significant disappointment, for those who have the huge responsibility of training young people how to think should themselves be educated and intelligent. That is, “Educators are needed who have themselves been educated, superior, noble spirits, proved at every moment, proved by words and silence, representing culture which has grown ripe and sweet-not the learned louts whom secondary schools and universities today offer our youth as ‘higher wet nurses.’ Educators are lacking, not counting the most exceptional of exceptions, the very first condition of education” (510). Nietzsche then writes that the learning institutions of Germany don’t seek to actually provide an education - they only want to create corporate and government drones. Nietzsche himself writes that young people undergo “brutal training,” “with as little loss of time as possible,” “to become usable, abusable, in government service” (510). He then remarks ironically that higher education does not deserve to be called higher education anymore if a majority of people have access to it, considering that “All higher education belongs only to the exception: one must be privileged to have a right to so high a privilege. All great, all beautiful things can never be common property: pulchrum est paucorum hominum” (510). Nietzsche writes tellingly that the teachers of these learning institutions are extremely mediocre, seen in the methods of their educating the youth. Even worse, young people are constantly pressured to know what they want to do with their life, their “calling,” despite the fact that knowing what they wish to pursue is an extremely difficult question to answer: “And everywhere an indecent haste prevails, as if something would be lost if the young man of twenty-three were not yet ‘finished,’ or if he did not yet know the answer to the ‘main question’: which calling? A higher kind of human being, if I may say so, does not like ‘callings,’ precisely because he knows himself to be called” (511).
Nietzsche then criticizes previous writers. For instance, he states that Rousseau wants humanity to return to nature “in impuris naturalibus,” or “in a purely natural state.” He makes fun of Sainte Beuve, stating that he does not enjoy living, and is full of resentment and “petty wrath” against all those who do affirm it (514). Nietzsche then praises artists, for their creative instincts is a great expression of the affirmation of life. He then continues to rebuke Christianity, stating that a genuine Christian (ex. Pascal) can never be an artist, for they loathe themselves and have abandoned their creative instincts and higher faculties. Nietzsche describes the creative instinct as Dionysian, in honor of Dionysius; Dionysus, known as Bacchus, is the god of drunkenness and wine. Nietzsche proceeds to psychology, stating that psychologists have two main reasons for studying people. He interestingly writes that those who learn psychology to exploit others are more positive than those who seek to be impersonal while studying human nature, since “‘This ‘impersonal’ type is a despiser of human beings, while the first type is the more humane species, appearances notwithstanding. At least he places himself on the same plane, he places himself among them” (523). Nietzsche talks more of the higher human, writing that those who are most capable are also the most courageous. They also commonly face the “most painful tragedies: but just for that reason they honor life because it pits its greatest opposition against them” (524). Nietzsche states that genuine hypocrisy is very rare, for modern man has become “simply too comfortable for some vices, so that they die out by default” (525).
Nietzsche comes to criticize Schopenhauer, for even though he was a great psychologist, he was extremely pessimistic, as “He has interpreted art, heroism, genius, beauty, great sympathy, knowledge, the will to truth, and tragedy, in turn, as consequences of ‘negation’ or of the ‘will’s’ need to negate” (527). Nietzsche describes that when Schopenhauer discusses aesthetics, he does so sadly, for Schopenhauer believes that art provides only temporary relief for the individual from the infamous will to life. Schopenhauer is then described as being critical of lust, as he views it as something primal, while aesthetics deserve much more respect and due consideration. Nietzsche again criticizes people who are impersonal to human affairs, writing that they are the equivalent of ascetics who are punishing themselves. Nietzsche continues that impersonal people believe that their virtue consists of developing themselves as people, not on changing the world, which limits the scope of what they can do. Nietzsche then writes humorously of education in his day: “From a doctoral examination. ‘What is the task of all higher education?’ To turn men into machines. ‘What are the means?’ Man must learn to be bored. ‘How is that accomplished?’ By means of the concept of duty. ‘Who serves as the model?’ The philologist: he teaches grinding. ‘Who is the perfect man?’ The civil servant. ‘Which philosophy offers the highest formula for the civil servant?’ Kant’s: the civil servant as a thing-in-itself raised up to be judge over the civil servant as phenomenon” (532). Nietzsche also criticizes altruism, writing that those who are overly altruistic have given up caring for themselves and have a negative, unrealistic worldview. He writes that viewing life as having a negative worth is a dangerous worldview due to its contagiousness: “throughout the morbid soil of society it soon proliferates into a tropical vegetation of concepts-now as a religion (Christianity), now as a philosophy (Schopenhauerism). Sometimes the vegetation which has grown out of such decomposition poisons life itself for millenia with its fumes” (536). Nietzsche then writes powerfully of the quote that “Life is not to be suffered at all costs,” for he describes that in certain instances it is no longer wise to live any longer: “The sick man is a parasite of society. In a certain state it is indecent to live longer. To go on vegetating in cowardly dependence on physicians and machinations, after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, that ought to prompt a profound contempt in society” (536). Nietzsche continues that people should decide when they would like to die, for it affords them a rare dignity. In his own words, “To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has achieved and what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life-all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death” (537).
Nietzsche then makes light of pessimism, writing that even though he understands their lamentations that their births were outside of their control, they could still correct this potentially egregious and foolish error made by their parents by living lives that they would be proud of living. Nietzsche then defends self-chosen death, as doing away with oneself is not cowardice: “When one does away with oneself, one does the most estimable thing possible: one almost earns the right to live” (537). Nietzsche then elaborates that inequality is built on life itself, and being unequal is a fact of life. Furthermore, being unequal doesn’t always have to signify aberrations in the distribution of wealth. On the contrary, sometimes it can separate people based on their merits and passions, which encourages the likelihood of life-affirmation. Nietzche then talks about freedom, and he writes that freedom means being able to grow, to thrive, and that a true ubermensch “spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free man is a warrior” (542). Nietzsche then states that morality, for many people, is a bed of Procrustes, for conservatives generally overidealize a previous time, and wish for time to flow backwards. However, to slide back into the past is impossible, seeing that reverting progress is both abominable and difficult: “there are still parties whose dream it is that all things might walk backwards like crabs. But no one is free to be a crab. Nothing avails: one must go forward-step by step further into decadence” (547). Nietzsche then talks about geniuses, writing that great people impact history to such a degree that many people misinterpret their lives as finales. Instead of heeding their various messages, they dogmatically misinterpret it. Nietzsche writes that the “way of human gratitude” suggests that a society “misunderstands its benefactors” (548). This would apply to him to a large degree, as after he became insane, his sister would misrepresent his writings (Hitler personally visited her to convey his admiration for Nietzsche, wrongfully believing that Nietzsche was a proto-Nazi and anti-Semite), which would tarnish his reputation for many years, an act made even more terrible in that he was mentally incapacitated while she defiled his works for her own personal gain.
Nietzsche discusses criminals, and writes that many of them are still “healthy,” for many of the laws which societies place on them go against their vitality. That is, “The criminal type is the type of the strong human being under unfavorable circumstances: a strong human being made sick. He lacks the wilderness, a somehow freer and more dangerous environment and form of existence, where everything that is weapons and armor in the instinct of the strong human being has its rightful place. His virtues are ostracized by society; the most vivid drives with which he is endowed soon grow together with the depressing affects … It is society, our tame, mediocre, emasculated society, in which a natural human being, who comes from the mountains or from the adventures of the sea necessarily degenerates into a criminal” (549). Nietzsche, to back his point, describes the famed novelist Fyodor Dostoevski, whom he idolizes. Nietzsche writes that Dostoevski is “the only psychologist, incidentally, from whom I had something to learn,” as he ranked “among the most beautiful strokes of fortune in my life, even more than my discovery of Stendhal” (549). He goes on to say that Dostoevski was correct in viewing German culture as declining, and that when he was punished by the Czar with slave labor in Siberia for having ties with revolutionaries, he “lived for a long time among the convicts … hardened criminals for whom there ways no way back to society” (549). What he found was astonishing, for the criminals “were carved out of just about the best, hardest, and most valuable wood that grows anywhere on Russian soil” - that is, they were truly free spirits who had exceptional potential (550). Nietzsche writes of society as being a tomb, for it generates boredom, mediocrity, and monotony.
Nietzsche then balances his point involving society, as he states that he is not advocating for a return back to any “old” way of life, that is, any “return to nature.” Instead, he views progress as going into the future - a true return to nature is encapsulated when people reconnect with their passions, consequently performing great deeds of large scope. He criticizes Rousseau as being both an idealist and a rabble, as he was “sick with unbridled vanity and unbridled self-contempt” (553). Nietzsche then talks about Goethe, and he praises him for involving himself in life and pursuing many subjects which interested him. Furthermore, Nietzsche writes that “In the middle of an age with an unreal outlook, Goethe was a convinced realist: he said Yes to everything … Goethe conceived a human being who would be strong, highly educated, skillful in all bodily matters, self-controlled, reverent toward himself, and who might dare to afford the whole range and wealth of being natural, being strong enough for such freedom … the man for whom there is no longer anything that is forbidden-unless it be weakness, whether called vice or virtue” (554). Nietzsche then provides another definition of Dionysus: a Dionysian is a free spirit who, while acknowledging the uncaring nature of the universe, affirms living and lives with few to no regrets. He then talks of Greek texts and Hellenistic culture before ending the book with a plea for those who understand him to create their own systems of morality, casting aside the former, in order to become higher humans.
Personal thoughts:
Twilight of the Idols is a fantastic read. Like Nietzsche’s other works, it explores the past and his philosophy in depth, and it is both entertaining and informative. Twilight of the Idols, as stated before, was written in 1888, just one year before Nietzsche’s descent into insanity, which would never abate. Although it was a terrible misfortune that Nietzsche went mad, it should be appreciated that he published as much as he did beforehand. It is also interesting to mention that 1888 is said to be Nietzsche’s most productive year, seeing how he published The Antichrist, Twilight of the Idols, and Ecce Homo in rapid succession. I highly recommend Twilight of the Idols to anyone interested in philosophy, culture, morality, and Nietzsche.
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