Nietzsche Explained To The Common Person

Check out this four-part discussion on the philosophy and ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. Famous for his God Is Dead quote, learn what was behind the statement and how we as a society are worse off because of it. 

Stephen West – from Philosophize This! – For anyone interested in an educational podcast about philosophy where you don’t need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it. In chronological order, the thinkers and ideas that forged the world we live in are broken down and explained.

The connection with Nazi Germany is explained away in one of these episodes as his sisters wrarping of his ideas after his death.  

Nietzsche is a fascinating figure who ultimately went mad. This first episode is a bit hard to follow but sets up the next few episodes. I had to listen to these a couple of times to pick up all the nuances. 

The part I’m wresting with is the ideas around Power. Integrating the Stoic ideas with the Nietzsche model is going to take some thinking about.  In the end, the balance between ‘nothing happens as good or bad, it’s just how I interpret the events’ (Stoic) and ‘what good is happiness without sadness to appreciate the full range of emotions’, is the crux of the merging of ideas. 

Pain is good? After hearing how Nietzsche describes the concept of living on the edge and feeling the full range of emotions from pain to happiness, I sort of get it.  The analogy of the CAMEL – LION and CHILD is pretty interesting. The Lion and Dragon motiffs continue to show up in history.