A review by ajmcwhinney
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

3.0

I see why people really like Nietzsche; beautiful writer, strong ironic wit, a knack for incisive commentary and the deconstruction of modernity. But I also am confused as to how left-Nietzschians in the academy and beyond have simply attempted to pull the "good" stuff out of Nietzsche and refuse to acknowledge his clear aristocratic attitudes, upholding of subjugation as a necessary part of society (hence his anti-socialist rhetoric), his racism (while he is explicitly against nationalist bigotry, he still engages in a shitload of racial essentialism), and his anti-feminism (yes, I've read people who have taken up the argument that Nietzsche's misogyny is ironic at moments and that he makes a good critique of the essentialism behind "women as-such," but it still comes from a place of the desire to have women "stay in their place" and embody a specific role). I am not wholy convinced we can simply remove those things from our assessments of Nietzsche or our deployment of his concepts, and it is odd that so many have done so.

Nietzsche is certainly complex; I do not mean to reduce him to the level of "oh he did bad things so he is useless for our thinking." There are some very useful insights and methods of thinking here, but we should be taking them with HUGE grains of salt; we should engage in those complexities and not so easily handwave them away. I think a lot of people attempt to square the circles of Nietzsche's thought, to the detriment of their own thinking.