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59: Stephen Hicks | Zarathustra, Beyond Good & Evil & The Genealogy Of Morality (Part 2/3)

• Stephen Hicks • Episode 59

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Stephen Hicks returns to the podcast and delivers us one of the best pieces of content on the internet covering Friedrich Nietzsche. This is part two of three of Nietzsche's life.

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the greatest and sharpest philosophers of all time. Nietzsche's ideas, Nietzsche's quotes and Nietzsche's philosophy has proven to be truly Lindy as it has permeates again and again through the culture. In this podcast, I trace the timeline of Nietzsche's life while Stephen Hicks provides all the context and explanation of Nietzsche's philosophy as it develops along the timeline. 

You can expect to hear in this podcast with Jordan Schneider about the following and more…

  • Understanding Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Allegory For Becoming Who You Are)
  • Beyond Good & Evil.
  • The Genealogy Of Morality & The Master/Slave Morality.
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Links To Stephen Hick's Work

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  • 00:00 - Introduction.
  • 03:52 - Explaining Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Allegory For Becoming Who You Are)
  • 29:52 - Connecting Zarathustra, Jung & Joseph Campbell.
  • 44:10 - Back To The Timeline, Nietzsche's Most Productive Time Of His Life, BeyondGood & Evil, The Geneology Of Morality & Slave Morality. 
  • 01:09:25 - Afterthoughts & Ambition For The Podcast
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SPEAKER_00

Well, hello, welcome back. This is incredibly exciting for me. Stephen Hicks has returned to the podcast once again for round two of what will ultimately be three episodes of what is becoming a great introduction to the life and work of Friedrich Nietzsche. In episode 34, a couple of months ago, Stephen and I did part one where we documented Nietzsche's life from birth to university, to ultimately concluding at the at the lowest point in Nietzsche's life when he was in the high mountains of Silsmaria, just before he published Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In this episode, sound like a New Zealander. In this episode, we pick up exactly there and start the episode from explaining Thus Spoke Zarathustra, this allegory for becoming who you are, which is arguably Nietzsche's Magnum Opus, the most important book that he ever wrote. We then moved on, touched on the genealogy of morality, beyond good and evil, and he gives us a comprehensive understanding of slave morality as well, the master slave morality dynamic as well. We concluded this episode just before Nietzsche's cognitive for the famous horse incident in Turin, and obviously everything that comes after that, which is how his legacy might have been manipulated by his tista, how then the Nazis picked up on his work, and then how we can remember Nietzsche today. What does he mean in this modern society, which is a subject that Hicks is completely across? He wrote a book very famously now called Nietzsche and the Nazis. So you'll see in the podcast description here that there is a link to that uh free audiobook that you can listen to on YouTube. I think now with Nietzsche being relatively understood, it's going to be fascinating to hear what his legacy might inform us about modernity and the modern world. Is it actually the hell that we can assume that he might have thought it was? And I'm super excited to see what Hicks has to say about that. If this is the first time you're tuning into this podcast or the first time you've heard of Stephen Hicks, then I'll just very briefly give a couple lines of his bio. Stephen Hicks is a professor of philosophy at Rockford University, which is in Chicago, and he's also the executive director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship, a senior scholar at the Atlas Society. Hicks has published six books. The one most relevant here is his Brilliant Nietzsche and the Nazis, but he also famously published a book in 2004 called Explaining Postmodernism, which he has done a terrific job in other podcasts explaining what that means, but then also has the book itself. Him and I have never actually uh spoken about that explicitly. We kind of did in episode three. Hicks was actually the first guest who wasn't a friend of mine that came onto this podcast, and we talked a little bit about objectivism versus objectivism, and that sort of touches on it a bit, but it was by no means a deep dive at all. But that's Stephen Hicks. This is episode two of three of Understanding Nietzsche's life, and hopefully providing what will be a good source on the internet of getting into Nietzsche and understanding his work from a peripheral sense. Obviously, if you want to learn the specifics about any one of them, you'd have to deep dive into hundreds of hours of additional content, which you'll be able to find very readily on the internet. But then there's also, of course, the original text itself. Hang around uh to the end of the chat for my afterthoughts and also where I'm going to explain what my ambition is for this podcast more generally, since I don't want to uh take away from the conversation by making that awkward transition now. If you're keen, hang around to the end and you'll hear what I have to say. And so, with no further ado, here is Stephen Hicks on Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, Slave Morality, and more.

SPEAKER_01

Well, Mr. Hicks, welcome back. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Ryan. Or Mr.

SPEAKER_00

Faulkner Hogg, if we're going to be formal. Thank you. Um well, let's pick up exactly where we left off in the last chat. So we're at a point in Nietzsche's life where his books weren't selling. He walked away from a career of certain pompous security and wealth. Women rejected him. He was getting into his forties, he was sickly, and he was and and even at his lowest, he was suicidal as well. But in the depths of his misery, thus spoke Zarathustra. And so could you please explain the meaning of this book and the significance of the parable on self-overcoming, where he introduces the Übermensch, when you contrast that to just how low he was in his life?

SPEAKER_01

Uh I suppose the the quick answer to that question is no. I I can't explain it in uh in one hour. No, it's an extraordinarily rich work, uh, philosophically and and literarily. No, that's that's actually a cheap answer. We can say some some of the important things about the book, but yes. Uh, you know, as you as you mentioned, one of the interesting things is where Nietzsche was in his life personally. And so there always is this broader question about the the relationship between philosophy and one's personal life, so abstract uh philosophy and autobiography. Uh, but at the same time, it's not too uh parochial or unique to human being because, in one sense, uh Nietzsche wants to argue that we all need to go on a hero's journey. Uh, and actually, the whole point of the species as a whole is a kind of hero's journey that we should we should be embarking upon. And just as with uh with heroes' journeys, you have ups and downs that you go into the bowels of hell before you emerge into uh the sunlight again and hopefully find your mountain to uh to climb or whatever the metaphor is. But what's what's interesting uh about uh uh Zarathustra is it marks a departure for Nietzsche because uh he was on a standard academic path. Obviously, as a young man, he was brilliant, uh well educated, reading all of the great works in philosophy, literature, history, and so on, and uh mastering classical languages as well. Uh while his reputation is mostly as a as a philosopher, his uh PhD was in philology, love of love of languages, and particularly ancient languages. And then he was appointed uh uh to being a professor at a uh kind of a German, even though it was in Switzerland, it's a German-style university, uh, and uh uh uh academic life is professionalizing itself in the 1800s and so on. And so for a lot of reasons, he breaks away from that. He resigns from his position, he goes off and uh and starts a new phase in his life, but it's a radically different style. So rather than being in the cloistered in a nice, safe academic position and all of the formats uh for how you write and how you publish and so on are all are all worked out, he's now a free spirit, a free agent, and he's wandering around uh Europe and uh finding his voice, and out comes Zarathustra. Uh so uh not only in terms of the content of Zarathustra, but also the form of Zarathustra is original for him. And one of the very interesting things about uh Nietzsche, or at least the reactions to Nietzsche, is how difficult it is for many people uh to get past not only the content of Nietzsche's work, but also the form in which he he presents his work. One of the occupational hazards we philosophers have, and actually most smart people, is once uh you get used to doing philosophy a certain way, uh, it's hard for you to recognize philosophy when it's being done a different way. And that's on top of all of the usual obstacles of, you know, I sense that this person is taking a position or making arguments that I don't like. They're going in a in a direct in a direction I don't want to go or I think is false. And so one uh, especially if one's second rate or third rate, is kind of looking for excuses not to have to read a person. And so you just, well, this person's wrong, so I don't know, I don't need to read them. And Nietzsche, because of the uh uniqueness and iconoclastic nature of most of his work, uh he he evokes that reaction in huge numbers of people. But then on the top of that, uh uh the the form in which Zarathustra is presented as a as a series of parables in a somewhat literary form, uh, with a number of kind of speeches and dialogues and so on. It's not a way of doing philosophy that is recognizable to much of academic philosophy, and it's it's hard work. Now, all this is very intentional for Nietzsche, but uh uh it's another reason why people who don't like Nietzsche uh will will dismiss him as not being really a really a philosopher or uh just you know say that he's uh he's not worth our attention for for various reasons. Now, uh, you know, we can get to into the particular metaphors. There's you know many beautiful inspirational lines in there. You know, no matter what your what your views are, there's something in in Zarathustra for you. Uh but also it is carefully calculated. It's not just a brilliant thinker working out and presenting a philosophy of life, but he also is doing it in a way where he's being highly attentive to rhetoric. You know, one of the other occupational hazards philosophers have is you know, we're so uh focused on truth and clear argument and so on. So we're trying to be very rigorous, but it becomes dry and lifeless and deathly. There's this kind of funny line uh that says uh you know, with uh with analytic philosophy of a certain sort, right, uh uh rigor comes, but also unfortunately, mortise. So you get rigor mortis, and so it's like death to read certain sorts of things. So Nietzsche is attentive to this, and he's aware that not only does he need to uh have a original philosophy that is well worked out and is going to be appealing to intellectually the smartest people who are willing to stick with it, but also that it needs to be inspirational, that rhetorically, right, human beings are not just desiccated premise and conclusion kinds of beings, that we want uh things to be to be vital, we want to be involved, we want to have a sense of purpose and meaning, and you know, to go back to the the language of hero's journey, that I am a hero or a potential hero, and I want to go on my journey, and partly what Nietzsche is presenting is a philosophical and a rhetorical journey that we that we can go on. So he's got a fictional character, Zarathustra, Zarathustra. Uh uh uh as uh at this point he's 40 years old when uh when the book begins. Uh he's been away isolated for 10 years on his mountaintop. Prior to that, presumably, he had 30 years of living that was uh somewhat formative, and now he comes back and then he encounters all sorts of bizarre characters and interesting characters and pathetic characters, and we uh see a great panoply of different kinds of individuals presented in literary form, and we see how they react to Zarathustra, we see how Zarathustra reacts to them. So all of the things that make literature, fiction literature, rhetorically powerful, Nietzsche is trying to incorporate them into this philosophical, philosophical work. So uh the point is going to be then, I think, that uh you have to be uh uh very good, or at least willing to go on a journey to try to become very good philosophically, uh, if you're going to get anything out of Nietzsche, but also you have to be willing to uh go on a literary journey and uh to be willing to do all of the hard work that first-rate literary interpretation takes if you are going to get something out of out of Nietzsche. And then another theme, uh, you know, we talk about philosophy as autobiography, and we we can come back to that one, how much of Nietzsche is in this, and how much he's just saying this is the human condition. Uh, but also there is this theme that Nietzsche is always insisting on, that philosophy uh is a is a do-it-yourself enterprise, that it really doesn't do you any good uh to just have it all laid out to you by even a you know a smart professor who presents views clearly and objectively, but kind of just delivers everything to you on a platter and you can just absorb it more or less passively. Uh Nietzsche's one of his themes is that that's not how philosophy works. You have to you have to do it. You have to uh he he you know, another kind of metaphor, you know, he might point in a direction, but you have to travel in that direction, right? Or he might offer some signposts, but you have to read the signposts and decide which of the many possible journeys you are going to go on. And so in that way, Zarathustra is an invitation to some some hard but hopefully deeply human work.

SPEAKER_00

That's one kind of the one of the problems of Nietzsche, right? The fact that he's so hyperbolic and so much, like you said, so much of the uh inspiration in his work in most other philosophy might be lost because of caveats and qualifiers, but instead Nietzsche will say very provocative things that could be interpreted differently, but you have to sort of understand it in the as a contrast to the greater body of work to sort of know maybe what he was getting at. But you said that you could go into some of the specific metaphors of Zarathustra. I think that would be very, very applicable because the context of Nietzsche's life as he wrote that book is so worthwhile. I think you you're asking the question how much of philosophy should be autobiographical. I think in this book particularly, it's extremely autobiographical because he's sort of painting the person that he wishes he could be. He sort of knows deep down that he could aspire to be, but in his life around him, in his waking hours, he's not living out that life. He's sickly, he's depressed. Women don't like him, his books aren't selling. So um I think it would be really uh yeah, great to go into some of the specific metaphors of Zarathustra.

SPEAKER_01

One of the interesting things is the choice of the name. So thus spoke Zarathustra. So who is Zarathustra? It's not uh it's not Bob and it's not Dave or or Jose. It's not like a common name, it's extraordinarily unusual name. So right off the bat, you uh you have to do some work to figure out who this guy, this guy is. And then uh, you know, we don't actually don't know a huge amount about the original Zoroaster. It's uh you know an early religious figure. They're not even sure what his dates are, maybe 2,800 years ago, maybe as long as uh you know 3,000 years ago in what is now you know uh uh Iran.

SPEAKER_00

Mesopotamia or something.

SPEAKER_01

No, even yeah, a little further further uh east than that. I think uh I think he was he was Persian or he came out of the people who we now think of as as the Persians. And uh a kind of uh religious prophet who uh had standard religious training, but then also uh had a kind of experience when he was older, around 30 years old perhaps, and a new vision of what proper uh religionslash philosophy question life should be, had a certain amount of charisma and so attracted a following, including some people who were quite quite high up. And uh, you know, so Nietzsche is choosing this guy, you know, in part because you know, so some of the themes are that he is more of a um uh kind of a prophet figure, um, not in the sense of there just being a whole bunch of gods and goddesses out there, but seeking a more unifying principle and a more systematic worked-out understanding of of uh the place of human beings in in the cosmos. But uh again, we don't know a huge amount. One of the interesting things about Zoroaster, though, is the extent to which the uh the Abrahamic religions, you know, further to the West, so uh by which we mean Hebrew and then the breakaway version that is Christianity, and then the later breakaway version that is uh that is Islam, that many of the core themes that you find in those three religions are already anticipated by Zoroaster or Zarathustra. And then, you know, an interesting question is to the extent to which those religions are independently founded or whether they are uh borrowing heavily from yet earlier religious traditions such as such as Zoroasterianism. So that's one interesting theme. So there's something about Zoroaster and his journey and his way of doing uh religion and philosophy that Nietzsche is picking up on and wanting to revive for contemporary times. Uh it's also clear that Nietzsche has read all of the major Greeks and you see reflections on those, often in allegorical form or metaphorical form. But also uh there's a later work that Nietzsche calls the Anti-Christ, and uh that's anticipated significantly in uh spog Zarathustra. So you can see that the same uh literary form that Hebrew scriptures and then the New Testament are written in being echoed, and in some cases uh played with, in some cases turned on their heads or mirror image, all of the literary things that people are doing. So Zoroaster is to a large extent meant to be uh sorry, Zarathustra, Nietzsche's version of Zarathustra is meant to be put in direct contrast to someone like Jesus, who went on his own journey and uh interacted with people of various sorts, and uh and there are lessons, and he spoke in parables, and we need to interpret the parables, and out of that you can get something more systematic if that's uh how you are how you are inclined. So, one way then of reading this then is to just uh read the book and ask yourself to what extent is Zoroaster or Zarathustra meant to be a counter to Jesus in terms of all of the major doctrines of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And remember that for morality. Yeah, part well, yeah, a lot of it's going to be focused on morality for sure, but uh you know, that that the for Nietzsche, Christianity is uh really just a purified form of Judaism. So can we extract to the extent that we are analytic in this way and say Christianity stands for you know these top 12 points, and you list them, can we find then the counter to all 12 of those points represented in Zarathustra? And and we do know shortly after Zarathustra returns to writing a little more systematically, writing Beyond Good and Evil, and then Genealogy of Morals, which is you know explicitly in essay format. Yeah. Um and there, you know, clearly he is hammer and tongs going after the Judeo-Christian tradition and kind of saying, you know, if you didn't get the parable version in Zarathustra, I'm going to lay it out for you. Explicitly. Yes, yes, for sure. So that's that's an interesting, uh interesting point there. Um then I think uh at some point, given the short amount of time that we have here, given that we're not doing a course on this, maybe the best way to do it would be just to pick a few favorite uh aphorisms or a few uh favorite parables from it and uh and speak to those.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, sure. Could I tee you up then? Uh to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. Unless you have if some specific on hand that you want to really.

SPEAKER_01

Well, no, I I do have my favorites, but this is your show, so why don't you uh start using it?

SPEAKER_00

Please deliver your favorites um and then I'd love to um just tee you up for one specific that I'd love to hear you answer.

SPEAKER_01

Sure, sure. Uh well one uh one hobby horse of mine, um, I might as well put a plug in for my for my uh my book, right? Nietzsche and the Nazis. The angle is a little bit different there, but I do spend a lot of time talking about Nietzsche.

SPEAKER_00

Uh and uh that's half the title.

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah, that's right. And then I have another major journal article, it's almost a mini book itself called uh Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand. And in that one, uh uh it's a it's a scholarly piece published in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. I take up this issue in which, because often Nietzsche and Rand are conflated or they're seen as being working the same territory, so I focus on their views on altruism and egoism, both of which are central to their moral theories, and contrast them. The differences between the two are much more important than the uh the smaller number of similarities between the two. But one of the things uh uh that I think is important to me as a philosopher is Nietzsche's reputation for being an individualist. And I think uh my view is that that's a superficial reading of Nietzsche. That Nietzsche is much more of a collectivist, excuse me, than he is an individualist. So we take the uh the concept of the uh the overman that is introduced in uh in Zarathustra. So God is dead. Introduced in Zarathustra. And so God was conceived of as the great creator and the great lawgiver, and human beings are in a subordinate status. We're supposed to receive and obey and act according to this great puppet master in the sky, right? And all of that sort of stuff. So with the death of God, Nietzsche then is saying that really God was just a projection by human beings of our potential that we have. So we created God, and in God we uh we put all of our aspirations for what is possible. So what we need to do, in effect, is reclaim that creative power and see that we really are the creators of ourselves, of our lives, and we then need to uh be creators of of uh of new values. But uh quite early uh in the in the uh in the first part, uh, in introducing the concept of the death of God and then pointing toward the overman, uh what Nietzsche quite explicitly says is we human beings right now, the human being, or in the older translations, man or mankind, he's talking about the species, uh is a way station on this evolutionary path. So what he's quite explicitly saying is you as an individual are not that important. What is important is you and your contribution to the development of the overman. So, and then he makes this very explicit evolutionary um uh comparison. Uh of course, this is the uh the early 1880s, now as he's composing this. So it's uh 23 or 24 years after the publication of Origin of Species by Darwin. So this evolutionary matter. So what he uh wants to argue though is what he says is human beings in relation to the overman will be what now the ape is to human beings. So uh with all of these aspirations to be your best, to become creative, and so on, it's not that you are an end in yourself. Your value is going to be to the extent that you contribute toward the creation of the overman, which is going to be a new species that exists at a higher level. So just as the ape, uh this is you know not very good evolutionary theory, but the ape has evolved into human beings, human beings will evolve into the overman. And so that's uh that's that's the end. And he's uh full of praise for people who will sacrifice themselves, who will bear all sorts of privations, and even be willing to die for this cause. And the cause is not the old traditional, you know, die for the king or die for your gods. It's not even you know, die for your family, it's die right, or be sacrificed for the sake of this uh this further species. So that uh that very rich metaphor of evolution from ape to human to overman, I take that one very seriously, and he comes back to it over and over again. So uh those of you who are attracted to Nietzsche because of the uh the individualistic themes, and there are some in Nietzsche, he's very inspirational. If if you take him that way, but that's not the best philosophical reading of Nietzsche. Let me see if I can call it up. Oh, actually, this is just in the in the prologue section number four, so I'll read along.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_01

What is great about human beings is that they are a bridge and not a purpose.

SPEAKER_00

That's amazing. Yeah. Literally defining the evolution to the oven. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's right, that's right. So human beings are not the purpose. And I hear he's talking about the species as a whole, and you as an individual, you are not the purpose, right? You are a bridge. Right. And you know, we know their bridges are you know, something that is a stage along the way, a crossing over to something else. So the purpose is somewhere, somewhere beyond. So I would uh tee that one up for special attention and read uh uh everything else that comes up in Nietzsche in the light of that one.

SPEAKER_00

Nice, that's amazing. I've never um heard that interpretation of it before, but it does add so much flavor to the unbelievable ambition that he has, you know, because like we'll foreshadow for later, you know, he tries to usurp the morality of the Bible, right? But then again, you have here he's actually trying to evolve the species.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, that that is so there's at least the important thing there is rather than sacrificing yourself for these mythic, uh, you know, otherworldly beings who you've never met, never spoken to, exactly. Yeah. Let me just just read one one more uh from that same section. Uh I love those who do not first seek behind the starts for a reason to go behind the stars for a reason to go under. So behind the stars, the gods or God, right, is out there. So why should I go under? A metaphor for sacrifice. Uh I'm looking for some reason behind the stars and be a sacrifice, who instead sacrifice themselves for the earth, so that the earth one day may become the overman's. So he's not opposed to sacrificing individuals, and he does want you to sacrifice yourself, but not for the gods, but for the future overman, whoever those beings might be. So um, and then one more section from this uh uh where he is a different metaphor here. That we're like a raindrop in a in a storm cloud, waiting for the lightning to come along. So you're just a raindrop. And how important is the raindrop?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, inconsequential, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. And the raindrop is going to fall and splatter itself on the earth. I love all those who are like heavy drops falling individually from the dark cloud that hangs over humanity. They herald the coming of lightning, and as heralds, they perish. So your job is, yeah, you will perish. But your job in your perishing is that you are part of this mass that is going to signal or herald the coming of the lightning. And it's really the lightning that we are we are waiting for.

SPEAKER_00

And that's the lightning is going to be the value you derive rather than that's right.

SPEAKER_01

And that will be the overman, right, or some sort of Zeus-like being who has the capacity to uh to make things happen. So that one uh that that that I think is important. Now, yeah, I've published on this, and uh, I do get a lot of grief on this. Okay. Uh, because you know, there are a lot of people are very wedded to Nietzsche being an arch individualist and individualist all the way down and so forth. Uh, but I caution against that intuition.

SPEAKER_00

And that's you teasing out uh in comparison to Rand, the individualist side of things. You're saying they're not in fact, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Right. So I think Rand is properly interpreted as an as an individualist, and Nietzsche, with some qualifications, is not actually much of an individualist philosophy.

SPEAKER_00

Um I before we move on from Zarathustra, I would love to just hear you comment on the large metaphor of it all, which you already have, in other words, but just again to like nail the um, just to double down completely, uh, to speak more about the metaphor of becoming who you are, because you've mentioned the hero's journey several times, which is obviously the work of Joseph Campbell, who uh built that off the work of Carl Jung, who built that immediately after the death of Nietzsche. Carl Jung came exactly exactly after him and ended up at the point of individuation. Carl Jung's idea was this is the ultimate purpose of any person. If they can, in Nietzsche's idea, become an Uber an Ubermensch, Carl Jung's idea is that they become individuated, they become themselves, they fulfill all of their potential and more. Without an end goal, necessarily just knowing that the entire journey is the value of it. Um, with that as the context, you know, tying in Jung's individuation, you've mentioned the hero's journey. Uh can you speak more about Nietzsche's metaphor that he really wants to hammer home here on a person becoming who they are, fulfilling whatever the potential might be, irrespective, and that's obviously a little bit separate probably from what you've just said about them being a bridge to an evolution of the species. If if we if we if we don't include that, what yeah, do you what do you think?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the uh the the who you are is uh is a potentiality. And you know, Nietzsche's view is that you know he's not the overman, and he doesn't think any of us really are the are the overman. You know, some of us, you know, perhaps you know, one in 10 million will will have some serious potential to to shake things up and do some sort of creating new value. So this language of of being a herald of some future development and evolution works in in long time, I think he does take that that seriously. So largely what he is doing is you know, after you set aside the 99% of the population whom he thinks are sheep, uh uh uh but even worse because they are they are human beings who failed up to live or failed to live up even to a minimal human level and have declined to the level of sheep. Uh and then you have the 1% of us who have some creative potential and actually are willing to go out and do something, uh something uh something amazing. And then out of that million, 999,000 will fail significantly, but at least they tried. And then there will be that tiny sliver of humanity that uh that does something significant that takes the human being a little bit further down the path to the overman. Uh so what I think Nietzsche uh is doing is um uh is trying to be inspirational to that part in us, those of us who have something in us that is some potential worth developing. Uh and without being at all programmatic about what form or even what direction that will take, whether it will uh happen in the in the in the entrepreneurial business sector, whether it will be in the scientific sector or in the artistic sector or the music sector or just becoming a great explorer of the of the earth and the universe sector. He doesn't want to say what that's going to be. It's just going to be something that uh that that you will do. Uh and uh uh I like also his metaphor of the um uh the the the thirst the three stages, the three metamorphoses, which I think is also very rich about becoming who you are. Here he's a little bit programmatic about it. So he says we go through three stages, uh, as long as we're willing to go on this journal, like a camel stage, a lion stage, and then the final stage is uh becoming a child again. Uh and that latter is a uh to go back to our first point, uh kind of interestingly, in parallel to the born again theme, right? That's in Christianity, that after going through a certain process, one can be born again, and you find that picked up in Nietzsche, this third stage of being a child. So it was to say, uh for human beings who are willing to take on the great project, the first stage is this camel stage. And so we you know, you imagine a camel is going to go off on a on a long desert journey into a kind of a wilderness where everything is barren. And in order to prepare for that journey, what you need to do like a camel does is drink a lot of water. So you soak it up, you soak it up. And uh the parallel here might be I'm just gonna use the word might be, to young people who, preparing for their life, they become alive intellectually and open to the broad world. And you become a kind of sponge, right? You're just hungry and open to all sorts of new experiences. Uh, and you have this great thirst for knowledge. So you read everything that you can, and you just take it in, you take it in to try to fill yourself up. And it also can uh, again, might be interpreted as that kind of alienated teen stage, precocious teenager stage, where you feel like you're you're in a desert landscape, socially, culturally, and so forth, you are alienated and so on. So the camel, you soak everything up, but also you want to test yourself, you want to take on challenges. And so the camel gets loaded with very heavy burdens, and it's very impressive how much a how much a camel can do. So you'll take on great challenges and great responsibilities, and then go out and see what you can what you can do. All right, so that's a very rich metaphor, and uh I'm not going to be too programmatic about it, but Nietzsche puts it out there and he has his own description. So uh uh start with that one. But then he says the next stage is the lion stage. And uh the lion stage is uh uh where you become a fighter. So the the camel is in one sense passive, just absorbing uh stuff from the environment, uh, reacting to what it sees as a kind of desert environment that it's it's alienated to, but it's also accepting burdens and it's allowing lots of burdens to be placed on it. But most of the time, the burdens that are put on the camel are put on by the camel's owner. Someone else is making decisions what those burdens should be. That the lion stage is when you have realized the fullness of your strength and your aspiration not to be uh bearing burdens and doing things because other people said you were supposed to bear these burdens and do these responsibilities. So you become, you become a fighter, you become a predator, you be willing to, you go out and you attack and you want to uh to tear down and destroy any potential enemies, partly to uh assert your own strength, but then also to signal to yourself and to everybody else that you are not a beast of burden any longer. Now, to some extent, this is still reactive to the world. Other people are are putting these burdens upon me, and I need to be adversarial and attacking with respect to other people. But then the third stage, uh, Nietzsche then says, once you've got that out of your system, as you become a child again. And uh you're then able to approach the world the way a child approaches it, with innocence and with wonder, and this uh the sense of uh I can go out and do whatever it is that I that I want. And Nietzsche leaves it there. So, yes, we need to go through these various stages, yes, we need to test ourselves in various ways, yes, we need to re be reactive against the uh the world, but that should not be uh defining you and ultimately be where you end up. And a lot of people uh, you know, depending on the limits of their strength, they get stuck at those various stages or they get crushed by those various stages. That ultimately one should strive again to be a child. And I think all of us can remember, no matter how bitter or jaded or tired we are now, in uh in middle age or near middle age or wherever we are right now, to remember what it was like to be a child at that at the best, that sense of openness and benevolence and sunlit skies, uh uh, and to be able to go forth and do what you want in the world. Now, Nietzsche leaves it at that point. He doesn't then say the child then needs to be trained in this particular way and in this particular direction. He just wants us to uh find again that childlike state of uh doing life, but as an adult. Uh so I think that one's very important. Now, another one uh before we make a transition here is Nietzsche steering away from anything that's too programmatic is uh is uh the point at which Zarathustra has attracted a certain number of followers, people who are listening to him. But he then says, uh, you know, the great danger here is the danger that all disciples have. And again, there's going to be a parable to uh to Jesus, once Jesus has attracted his uh his followers and so on, where disciples become uh uh uh uh subordinate. They're willing to hang on every word the master says and to take the words of the master and the the master's way of dressing and the master's way of behaving in the world, and and just to copy that. And so they become emulators. And Nietzsche says that's a that's a great danger, and I do not want people to follow me in that sense. Uh, and so he goes out of his way to say, uh, and this is another favorite line that you still will see often quoted, is that one repays a teacher badly if one always remains a student. So, yes, you are under someone else's tutelage for a while, but your goal is not just to be a disciple of the master. And so he explicitly urges all of his disciples to say, go away from me now. You know, you've absorbed some things from me, go away. Don't be a follower of me anymore. In fact, what I want you to do is uh be suspicious of me. Maybe everything I have told you is nonsense. You can never challenge me. Who you are in the shadow of somebody else. Exactly. That's right. So go off and and and follow. So uh, in a way, that's an anti-Jesus point to the extent that Christianity is interpreted as you are a follower and you are always going to be subordinate and uh uh and so on. So uh I, as your teacher, I can help prepare you, but only you can find your own voice, find your own way, find your own passions, find your own strengths. Then you have to break away with me or from me and go off and do it, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_00

If you can, try to keep this to a minute or two. But as you were describing those stages, I was just thinking is there something instinctual to what he's saying here? Is there anything is it like almost an inherent mode of being to go through those stages or at least long for those stages? Or without someone imposing them on us, would they just be missed? Does that question make sense? Like what is is Nietzsche happy in instinct here, or is it totally separated from them?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think uh I want to jump ahead from Zarathustra. The way he speaks in Zarathustra, he's often you know condemnatory of various sorts of people, but there is an overarching benevolence that even the people who don't listen to Zarathustra, who mock him, who don't recognize him for what he is, uh kind of the misunderstood prophet uh trope, uh Zarathustra's reaction often is this uh well, they're just not ready for me yet. So he's not then entirely dismissive of them to say, you know, these people are scum, it's hopeless, uh, et cetera, et cetera. There's this idea that uh he is he's a prophet, and there's some people are ready to listen to him, but the rest of the population is not ready to listen yet. And that leaves open the possibility that still they're on their evolutionary path, and maybe just the instincts are are a little more muted in them or slower in development and then so on. In his later works, though, I think he does become much more condemnatory. And uh my reading of the the the later Nietzsche is that he does think that it is largely uh biological uh to use this instinct language, and the vast majority of people just don't have what it takes. Uh and it's only a tiny percentage of the human population that has the right kinds of instincts, and those instincts are fiery enough to uh to go out and do something.

SPEAKER_00

And that type of language is obviously rife to be manipulated with, which obviously it does after his death, like the notion that there is, you know, a genetic or biological difference between the potential and certain people. And that metaphor should be clear um to anybody listening.

SPEAKER_01

Um look right. So by the time we get uh shortly thereafter into Beyond Good and Evil and uh and and genealogy of morals, uh uh his tone is much, much harsher. Well, look, so there are predators and prey, and uh that is within human beings as well.

SPEAKER_00

We we've totally blown the timer, but that's okay. I think it's better to embellish a question rather than sort of rush it just for the sake of um of a time limit.

SPEAKER_01

But we're gonna spend the whole time just on Zarathus.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let's see if we can transition it. Um I was thinking then um to because you've now teed up his future work, I think well enough that we can then introduce it and the metaphor of Thusberg Darasusha hopefully is understood. So it seems Nietzsche has propelled himself onto a role. Um, after he Uh gets this book out, thus both there, etc. He returns to the road and also turns in another Western canon classic, Beyond Good and Evil, and also the genealogy of morality, which is an ever-present testament to the random taste of publishers because uh neither of them are uh successful. They're self-published, no one thought they were good, they're just trash. Nietzsche here tirades against what he thought was pathetic and despicable at the top of the list, worship and religion. Um, I just want to give you some space to decompress these two books. Obviously, slave morality is a big part of this as well. Um to you.

SPEAKER_01

Well, uh yes. Uh these books do become increasingly uh didactic uh after Zarathustra. So Zarathustra is a literary and philosophical masterpiece. Uh that's not to downgrade it at all the accomplishments of Beyond Good and Evil and Genealogy of Morals, but they are written in a much more accessible style. That is to say, there are literary elements and parables and so on, uh, but uh you don't have as much literary work unpacking them. So uh you know, Beyond Good and Evil is quite hefty, it's long, I believe it's divided into about nine different books, and each of them in varying length has a whole number of aphorisms. And there the the idea is uh uh that uh once we have this idea that we uh have the potential to be more than we are, that we're not going to uh be stuck in a kind of authoritarian life model uh morally or even metaphysically. There are some more powerful beings or beings that made us, that own us, that tell us what to do, that are watching what we are doing, and we have to follow along. So we we are we're able to break all of that and then go off and find our true humanity as uh as creative human beings. Uh why are so many people not willing to do that or able to do that? And so here we find Nietzsche also exploring not only the history of religion and the history of morality, but also getting much more deeply into psychology and biology. So the theme beyond good and evil uh uh is meant to give a typology of morals. You say that if we look then at the history of human beings thinking about philosophy and the good life and the bad life and what the meaning of life is, we have this one kind of moral code that centers around the concepts of good and evil. And uh here the idea is that there is a source of good, and that good is pure and absolute, and it might be otherworldly, it usually is in the religious forms, and that everything is a falling away from that, uh, and the opposite of that, and that is evil. And what's interesting about the concept of evil is that it's a knowing rejection of the good. So it's not just that, you know, I don't know, you you have uh you know you're you're you're at you're having a picnic and some raccoon comes along and snatches your sandwich, right? And you would say bad raccoon. But the raccoon is not evil, right? Because the uh the raccoon is just doing, yeah, it doesn't know any better. And so this beyond good and evil is an upgrade to that, the idea that we human beings know that we're supposed to be obedient and following these commands and so forth, but we are in rebellion against these commands, and so we are doing bad things, but we're knowingly doing those bad things, and so therefore we are evil. And then, on the basis of that, uh to the extent that we uh um try to conceptualize and rationalize our willingness to do evil, we just become more and more evil and we get further and further away from God. And then the most extreme versions of that are the strong forms of original sin that say human beings are just thoroughly corrupt and thoroughly evil all of the way through. And uh and so we have this very polarized notion: human beings and everything that they do by themselves is evil, and God is at the other end of the spectrum, and everything that God is is entirely pure and good. So, what evil uh Nietzsche wants to do is explode that that that notion. We have to get beyond entirely that way of thinking about morality. Now, what he then wants to do is not then to say that therefore there is no such thing as good, and there is no such thing as bad, it's that they have been misconceptualized by a certain sort of person. And so this is partly where we get into the psychological and the biological territory. And what Nietzsche does for his genealogical perspective, and you know, the fact that he's studied uh you know so many cultures, modern and ancient and so on, is realize how many different moral codes there are out there. Uh, so this idea that there is one understanding of good and bad, and we all kind of know what that is, Nietzsche does not think that that's true. Just as a historical fact, what is prized as good in some cultures is the exact opposite of what is prized as good in various other cultures. And this includes, you know, killing and lying and how many wives you're allowed to take, right, and so forth. There is no such thing as the good that we all recognize uh and that uh some of us just are in rebellion from. We have these dramatically different understandings of what good and and and the bad are. So this Judeo-Christian uh approach that has a kind of monopoly on Western culture, even in slightly more secularized forms, among which he would name the socialists and most people who are in favor of democracy, but that's a that's a sidebar for later. Uh uh, that entire approach is not, in fact, a historical monopoly, but rather just one version of morality that for various reasons has come to dominate Western culture. And so partly his uh his uh his training as a philologist, that is a studier of language and an expert in language, uh, gives him a lot of clues toward this. So he goes back into various ancient languages and says, you know, their uh their pro words or or success words or positive words, and all of the traits that they are prizing, you know, strength and assertiveness and pride and dignity and so on. Yeah, that's right. All of these are the things that are good for them, and all of the things that are bad in that moral vocabulary, like humble or being humble and patient and uh obsequious and obedient and so on, from that perspective, right? Uh, all of those traits are quite negative. And so the point is, uh, you know, historically there have been lots of moral cultures that have praised as good the very things that the Jews and the Christians have come to see as bad and therefore labeled as evil. So Nietzsche's question then is uh how is it that this, and he calls it at various points, this more aristocratic moral code, where you are praising hierarchy and strength and assertiveness and the willingness to engage in the martial arts and to conquer and to enjoy your riches, uh, and and in some cases, of course, to uh to think of yourself as uh you know metaphorically God's gift to humankind and everybody else's beneath your feet? If that has been widespread in human history and so many different cultures around the world, in the ancient Arabs, in the ancient uh you know samurai, in the Homeric heroes, and so forth, how on earth could this uh moral code that praises humility and you know, washing the feet of beggars and saying, I'm so unworthy, and uh, you know, this willingness to lower yourself and and and prostrate yourself on the on the ground and press your forehead to the dirt uh and be ashamed of your body and feel guilty whenever you want to have sex and so on. How on earth could a moral code like that is so pathetic, uh, have any sort of attraction, not only some sort of attraction, but come to be the dominant moral code in uh in Western civilization? So that's his great question. He calls that the inversion of morality. So this uh this old master aristocratic knightly uh code of morality, uh in contrast to what he then calls a moral code fit for slaves who have to be humble and obedient and and uh and so forth, uh, how is it that this inversion has has occurred? And you see him playing around sometimes with cultural explanations, sometimes with psychological explanations, and sometimes with with uh with uh uh biological explanations. So, you know, if we take a biological explanation, it could just be that uh you know we look out in in uh in other animal species, and we see some animal species are hawks and lions and wolves and their natural predators and five. That's right, and other other animals are are squirrels and and rabbits and uh and chipmunks, and that's just the way they are biologically, and so built into nature is this strong versus weak dynamic, and this predatory ethic is going to be natural for the predators, and this uh kind of more fearful and uh stay in the herd, and I hope that the big dangerous beings leave. Um yeah, that that's right, is going to be now now. What happens then if we just transpose that into human beings? And then say biologically, some human beings are more like predators and some are more like more like uh like uh like herd animals or or or bunny rabbits.

SPEAKER_00

And and as a metaphor, it's very seductive to think about. But then once it is taken literally is where the problems start to arise, eh?

SPEAKER_01

Well, of course. Well, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So uh, but then sometimes he's playing around with more psychological uh explanations that's not necessarily biological, but that uh it's just uh uh perhaps all human beings have a certain potential to uh live up to a certain standard of what it is to be a good human being. Just like, say, you know, all baby lion cubs or young lions have a potential as lions to aspire to some level of dignity and and majesty as lions. Not all of them are going to be the alphas, but nonetheless, all of them can be a pretty, pretty uh healthy and admirable specimen of what it is to be to be a lion. So maybe all human beings have this, but then the question is going to be why some fail to do so. And here you'll find Nietzsche using his moralistic language, where he says, really, it's a failure of cow uh of courage. Uh you have the potential there, but you're a little bit afraid, and you let that fear dominate you, and you shouldn't. And so many times this is you'll see this in uh in Zarathustra, but it gets uh fleshed out more in beyond good and evil. It's uh it's people uh failing to live up to the power or and potential that they have, and it's a it is a moral failing on their part. And the one that he most often signals is uh is a kind of cowardice. So I know that I can you know go out and and and seek women, right? And I really want to go out and seek women. And as a male, my my my my biological urge is to go out and and and and and and and relate to women a certain way, but then I'm afraid, right? What if she says no, right? What if her friends laugh at me and I let that dominate in me? Well, that's uh that's a betrayal uh uh on my part, right? Or I have this business idea and I could go out and and start. I could quit this crummy job that I'm in, uh, but I I'm afraid, and so I don't do it. And so then I turn myself into a more corrupt being, and I kind of actually start to hate myself because I know it's my my failure to take the risk, to take the plunge, to go out and pursue my dream. And so I'll pretend that, oh, the world didn't give me a chance, and and that all the rich capitalists held me back, but I really know that it's a that it's a that it's a fault of mine. So he plays around a lot with those courage, uh sorry, with those uh psychological explanations as well. And then one other big explanation that he puts out is a is a uh kind of a historical and cultural conditioning uh uh uh explanation that uh you know so he will point out uh in the case of Jews, for example, so if you actually go back into the history of the Jews, you know, they were one of many of many of many tribes kicking around in the Middle Eastern basin.

SPEAKER_00

In ancient Egypt, right?

SPEAKER_01

That's right. And then they ended up becoming slaves under the Egyptians. And then the question is going to be given that historical circumstance, how do you survive as uh as a slave under more power? How do you keep your your your cultural identity and your cultural traditions together? And so what he argues here is you know the the Jews were biologically and psychologically just like human beings anywhere are, but they were smart about reacting to their existential situation of being slaves and realized, well, if I try to act as a human being, as a slave, I'm just going to get killed. And so what I need to do is inculcate patience. And if you know if the master strikes me and beats me, well, I have to kind of shrug it off and forgive and uh and and be humble and be silent and be willing to wait for a long time and to be obedient and so on. So those become survival values in that particular historical context, but then you teach your children those survival values because you want them to grow up, and then it just becomes more conditioned cultural values over.

SPEAKER_00

Because a slave who stands up to his master will not get a chance to reproduce himself into the next line. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. And on the other side of the coin as well, the master who is uh weak in answering whatever call to adventure that is required uh will also fail to sort of reproduce his line. And so they sort of converge out separate parts.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. Nice, nicely put. So in uh uh Beyond Good and Evil, and then more systematically in the three essays of uh of Genealogy of Morals, you see Nietzsche working out these uh these lines. And what I think uh uh my my reading of Nietzsche is that uh ultimately it's the uh the biological explanation that is going to be the deepest with him. That's the one that he returns to returns to the uh to the most, particularly in his uh his later works.

SPEAKER_00

That also, that explanation you just gave of slave morality, in other words, um, I urge people to do in the last podcast, but I'll do it again. In your open college podcast, uh the episode on slave morality is terrific. You know, it really does um uh I think, at least for for myself, uh, you know, really help me understand what what he meant by this, because you know, there's so many ways to interpret uh such a like kind of ambiguous metaphor, and as you've just fleshed out.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Right. So we have this slave morality that's you know praising forgiveness and and mercy and meekness, and and you know, the the meek will inherit the earth, which is basically saying just be meek and somebody is going to deliver the goods to you at some point in the distant future, right? And so and be afraid of the big bad world, that that morality he thinks uh is just an expression of a certain psychological type. That uh you know it's you know, some people are just meek and by nature and afraid of the big bad world. And so it's uh it's a subjective codification or expression of a certain psychological type. But then ultimately he wants to say even that psychological type is uh just an expression of a biological uh state of being, that some people just they don't have what it takes. Uh so the so the mind is an expression of underlying physical things, that they you know they have conflicting and weak drives and so on, and uh uh so ultimately he reduces it to biological comparative.

SPEAKER_00

And how did Nietzsche explain how slave morality managed to conquer over master morality in the as as to become the dominant morality of Western civilization? According to Nietzsche, obviously.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's yeah, yeah, that that's a really hard question in in Nietzsche. And I think Nietzsche is still scratching his head about that. Uh because from his perspective, if you go back to the ancient world, you have the uh you know the Greeks who are magnificent and he admired the Greeks, and the then uh you know the Greeks are conquered by the Romans, but a lot of Greek culture is absorbed into the Romans, and so you've got this great master culture, the Romans, and the Romans are basically awesome at everything. He loves them, and so on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Right. So uh, and they are the dominant power in the Middle East, and in the Middle East at that time, you know, there's you know dozens, if not hundreds, of little religions kicking around. Uh, and the the the Romans are totally dominating uh them. You know, they could wipe out any of them that they want, and to some extent, you know, the Romans you know, they did their persecutions, but they're by and large tolerant, you know, just revere our gods and do what we tell you, follow the law, and you can you know have your own silly little gods, and we're fine with that as well. So, how could this uh, you know, to put it bluntly, this obscure, somewhat pathetic, uh semi-organized desert dwellers, a lot of them pretty ill illiterate, with this rather meek moral code, how could they prevail over the Romans? And how could they then not only prevail over the Romans but then sweep all of Europe and then become the dominant the dominant uh moral code in uh in the world? And I don't think Nietzsche has a good explanation for that. By the time we even we get into the genealogy of morals, he's still diagnosing the uh the historical decline. So he he presents a kind of historical uh saga. So Rome is great, but then Rome declines, you know, the the emperor converts to Christianity, and then following that the upper classes largely convert to Christianity, and Christianity becomes the uh the dominant uh religion. But then it continues to decline. We get into kind of the dark ages, another uh controversial topic, but there are things really were dark for about five centuries in in Europe. But then we start to get some resurgences of master morality in the Renaissance, uh, and then we have a the Reformation as a reaction right against that, but then we do start to see figures uh you know like Frederick the Great and then Napoleon and so on rising up, so a resurgence of master morality. But even so, by the time we get to to the 19th century in uh in Europe where where Nietzsche is uh reflecting on the culture, uh he sees the people who have the master morality potential in them as still a tiny minority surrounded by this uh this field of uh uh mediocrity. So even people, you know, there's a huge religious revival that goes on in in Germany in the early part of the 1800s. So people rejecting modernity and not like all the new science and industry and the whole course of the modern world and be a free agent and go off and seek your own artistic and world adventures. Huge swaths of people saying, no, we don't want any of that. We want to go back into our synagogues and go back into our churches and have the priests and the ministers tell us what to do. So, why on earth is this going on? You have this increasingly rich and free society, but most people don't want it. They want their safe little religion, they want their safe little house where they can uh you know be comfortable and you know have their tea at the end of the day or whatever. They don't want the great adventure. Why the hell is this happening even in the in the 1900s? Even those who are willing to break away from their traditional religious model uh and become secular and to become naturalistic, Nietzsche is aghast that a huge number of them turn to socialism. You know, from his perspective, you know, this idea everybody is equal and we all need to work together, right? And and and and we don't like those rich people uh who've got so much well, that's just you know, smacks of envy and herd morality, right? And and and so on. Uh and you know, and instead of you know the the God and the church looking after you, they just want the government to look after them. Just give me my nice little welfare check and uh and I'm gonna Stay in my herd, and that's the great socialist ideal. How pathetic is that? Nietzsche is saying. And in even in uh in other political expressions, the idea that we should be democratic. You know, that we should uh say everybody should be able to run for political office, and everybody should be able to vote on all of these complicated and matters. Yeah, that's right. Everybody's vote is equal, right? And everybody's voice should be heard. When it's obvious that, particularly from Nietzsche's perspective, that most people are idiots, most people are clueless, right, uh, and most people are just mirrors for other people's opinions about various sorts of things and so on. So he sees the 19th century as dominated by religious revival, by socialism, by democracy, and it's still a big mystery, I think, to him why this is the why this is the case. So uh I think he's increasingly at that point saying, yeah, a lot of people are culturally conditioned to uh to to to to uh to believe those sorts of things. But then the question still for him is going to be uh why would this cultural conditioning work? Because you know, you take a you know you take a baby wolf, and you you can't train a baby wolf to become a house pet. The wolf is still there. And if if there is some sort of being that you can, through cultural conditioning, train to be a house pet, well, that's something that was basically just fit for being a house pet in the first place. So I think he's uh uh at that point not fully satisfied with this explanation, but I think he wants to say somehow the the slave types, the people who are attracted to religion, attracted to socialism, attracted to democracy, they have just outbred, and this is the the um the uh the biological language coming for uh the the vast majority of people, and then the evolutionary lines that occasionally pop up someone with their act together and great instinctual energy and vigor and the and then and the chutzpah uh to to go out and do something, is uh they've uh they're just a minority genetically, uh although the genetics language we can't quite use that yet. That's still a bit anachronistic for for Nietzsche's time.

SPEAKER_00

We've done an hour and five minutes, which means I'm afraid that I've probably exhausted all your time. Did that we pick up uh with a part three where we can do will to power and then how uh Nietzsche's been interpreted after his death.

SPEAKER_01

Maybe we can turn to the the last phase of Nietzsche's.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, what we have to be excited for is obviously the will to power and all of the implications of that, whether it is, you know, the work of a madman or whether it was still written when he was lucid, and then obviously how he's been interpreted since his death, and then finally, something I would love to hear you comment on is you know, what would he think of modernity? Basically, is it the hell that he thought would be the consequence of the death of God? So a lot of interesting stuff. And I have a question that I really want to ask you, but it deserves time, so I won't ask it now. So, with that, uh Steven, thank you so much again for giving me your time. I'm very grateful to uh receive it.

SPEAKER_01

A real pleasure, Ryan.

SPEAKER_00

All right, and uh we'll see you in a few months. Well, that was tremendously exciting. I need to thank Stephen Hicks again for coming on um and doing this with me. Nietzsche is such a fascinating character for all of the reasons which I hope are becoming obvious to you. Episode three will probably be recorded sometime early next summer. The reason why there's so much time between them is just because Hicks has a lot of things to do. So he's gonna teach his summer course and then we're gonna schedule a time and uh hopefully publish what will finally be the third hour, which will then be able to be repurposed for a long episode later that can sit on YouTube and the podcast algorithms and hopefully get to work introducing people to Frederick Nietzsche. But thank you. If you've listened this far in, I assume that that podcast wasn't terrible. So thank you very much. I really appreciate the fact that I still have your attention. And I just want to quickly explain what my ambition is for this podcast because obviously it is uh a hobby and an interest of mine, but I also do want to make it a little bit more than that. I want to corner the podcast market for eclectic curiosities in whatever country it is that you're listening in from. Now, I don't know specifically what genre that falls into, and I don't know specifically what type of demographic listener might be interested in that, but nonetheless, that's what I'm aiming for. Obviously, the episodes are different all the time. There's different types of guests, um, you know, different levels of professionalism and maybe different levels of different levels of seriousness, but each time my my um my goal is well, I don't necessarily have a goal going into it, but each time my thoughts are similar. I'm trying to expand upon my worldview by absorbing someone else's. And, you know, the great thing about podcasting is that you can absorb other people's worldviews all the time. It's unbelievable. You know, I've I'm a I'm a podcast maximalist if there's such a thing. You know, ever since 2014, when I first heard of this Joe Rogan guy and then got further deep into it, I've you know, I'm I I'm surely at the tail and distribution of hours spent listening to podcasts in the last five, six years. Absolutely love them. I think they're the most amazing piece of media available because if you find the right podcast who has the right guest, Jesus Christ, it can be a seriously good learning tool. And also it can it can just satisfy your interests and it can feed your curiosities. So I'm hoping it fit into that latter part. Obviously, I'm not gonna I'm not presenting myself as some sort of expert on anything. I'm just uh another person on the internet who's decided to reach out to people and record interviews. So what I want to do with this podcast is just corner that market for eclectic curiosities. And who knows if uh there is an even is such a thing, but nonetheless, to get there, it means there needs to be reviews. So please, discoverability within all the podcast distributions are shite. They're completely stuck in the Stone Age. The one index that they look at really is the amount of reviews that's attached to it. So if you could leave a review, make it five stars, and leave a comment in the review as well. And hey, that could be that would be the most amazing thing that you could do for me. I cannot overstate how helpful it would be. So again, if I still have your attention, then you're an absolute legend, and thank you so much for listening through to this stage. Don't be shy to reach out to me. You can reach find me on Twitter um at Ryan F Hogg or just email me. You'll go you'll see on my website, very easy to email me. I'd love to hear from you. I've met up with a couple of people um who just serendipitously stumbled across the website here in Stockholm. And you know, if you're what if if you could also be one of those, it I would be thrilled, truly, over the moon to connect with you. That's all. Cheers, Mr. Hicks, one more time, and ciao.