Beyond Good and Evil

By: Friedrich Nietzsche

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, first published in 1886, presents a scathing critique of traditional morality and attacks previous philosophers for their blind acceptance of Christian ideals of virtue. As an alternative to what he viewed as the illogical and irrelevant philosophy of the nineteenth century, Nietzsche argues for the importance of imagination, self-assertion, danger, and originality for genuine philosophy. He furthermore denies the existence of a universal system of morality and instead offers a framework in which social roles and power dynamics dictate what is appropriate. A culmination of Nietzsche's mature philosophy, Beyond Good and Evil is a classic of moral thought and one of the foundations of existentialism. This edition is the translation by Helen Zimmern.

Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor

Difficult to understand

I admittedly listened to only a little of this book (somewhat into the first chapter) but that is because the narrator spoke very dramatically with, annoyingly, a strong modulation in volume. Some words would be loud but then some would be inaudible. This is a particular problem with Nietzsche since he often looks at subtle concepts where hearing even the prepositions is important to grasping his point. Therefore, I switched to the narration by Alex Jennings which is better (and which uses a translation that also includes brief notes before each chapter).

Nietzsche really is as bad as they say.

He is full of himself and his own intellect. He is not antisemitic, but he prescribes a horrible civilization.

I've read this book before.

I've read this, but listening brought new perspective. Enjoyed very much. I recommend this message.

Great for cleaning

So I put this on with the goal of NOT bingewatching season 2 of The Crown until I finished it. My house is pretty clean now. The narrator sounded just pompous enough that I'm sure Nietzsche would have approved.

Translation

Some areas I would have appreciated a translation of the multiple languages even if in written text