Study Questions for Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, pp. 50-71

1. “Raids of an Untimely Man” is the longest section of this book, and, on the surface at least, its least unified. It contains Nietzsche’s comments on many other writers and on various tendencies in modern culture. We will only have time to give close attention to a few of its fifty-one sections.

2. Sections 2 and 5 both allude to the attempt to retain a basically Christian morality without retaining Christian religious beliefs. Why does Nietzsche think that this is impossible? What is his explanation of the fact that ‘the English’ think that it is possible? What do you think about this?

3. Sections 8-11 offer some suggestions about the psychology of artists. Nietzsche stresses the importance of intoxication, but please notice that “the influence of narcotics” is only one of the forms of intoxication he has in mind. How does he distinguish between artists and anti-artists? (Section 9)

4. Section 14: How does Nietzsche distinguish his view from Darwin’s?

5. Sections 19-20: Nietzsche offers an account of the nature of aesthetic judgment (judgments about what is beautiful or ugly). He rejects the Platonic idea of “the beautiful in itself.” What is the source of beauty in his view? In what instincts are aesthetic judgments based?

6. Section 24: Why does Nietzsche reject the idea that art should be pursued for its own sake (art for art’s sake)?

7. In Section 33 (pp.68-69) Nietzsche seems to suggest that individuals who “represent the ascending line” have great value and are permitted to be selfish, whereas individuals who “represent the descending development, decline . . . [etc.]” are worthless parasites who may rightly be deprived of resources so as to give more to the ascending types.

a. What do you think he means by “ascending” and “descending” in this context?

b. What sort of value do you think he is talking about here? If “there are no moral facts at all” (p.38), then what sort of fact is described (or what sort of statement is being made) when Nietzsche says “it is only fair that they [the descending types] should take away as little as possible from those who have turned out well”?

c. What do you think about Nietzsche’s value judgment here?

8. In Section 34 Nietzsche claims to see a similarity between the “socialist worker” or “anarchist” who complains of injustices in society and the Christian moralist who attributes his suffering to his own moral defects (sins). “What is common to both and, let us add, what is unworthy, is that it should be someone’s fault that one is suffering—in short that the sufferer prescribes the honey of revenge as a cure for his own suffering.” Revenge on whom? For what injury? If you were inclined to try to defend either Christian morality or social criticism (or both) against this charge, what might you say?

9. In Section 36 Nietzsche seems to express several more value judgments: First, that a sick person who wants to live after his or her life has lost its “meaning” deserves our contempt. Second, that “degenerating life” should be “shoved aside with no mercy whatsoever.” Third, that it is sometimes admirable to commit suicide “To die proudly when it is not possible to live proudly anymore.” What do you think of these judgments? (Do you think that Nietzsche should be held responsible for the way his ideas about “parasites” and “degenerating types” were later put into practice by the Nazis?)