Episode Details

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WATCH:
▶ Why Nietzsche Loved Dostoevsky: https://youtu.be/k6b6aTMw6iM

OUR ANALYSES:
▶ Beyond Good and Evil: https://youtu.be/WIHXZUltfqk
▶ The Antichrist: https://youtu.be/qej1Z8Qzq_c
▶ Genealogy of Morals: https://youtu.be/6PUx4cOfFcI
▶ Twilight of the Idols: https://youtu.be/YpVr_NEvWYA
▶ The Will to Power: https://youtu.be/He6ZC7ZFBt8
▶ Daybreak: https://youtu.be/cOL2z7nuXdA
▶ The Joyful Science: https://youtu.be/U0fTBOJ-C_I

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction
03:09 Décadence
05:23 The slave revolt in morals
08:57 The auto-domestication of man
11:16 The birth of décadence
12:17 The criminal
17:19 Dostoevsky's House of the Dead
19:26 The exceptions

It's a short passage in Twilight of the Ideals where Nietzsche deals with the criminal and his psychological valuation of him. But in order to fully comprehend Nietzsche unorthodox sociology and psychology of the criminal, we need to take deep dive through his entire philosophy, and visit The Genealogy of Morals as well as The Antichrist.

Décadence and the morality of custom take center stage as Nietzsche sketches a sociology where society domesticates man. It suppresses our violent instincts so that society can run smoothly. Better to be cooperative, well-spoken, polite, than an aggressive, violent brute.

But the suppression of these animalistic drives in man comes at a cost: it fosters a disease which Nietzsche dubbed décadence, and all of society, through the long march of history from the paleolithic, through Christianity, to now, has become sick with it.

Only some individuals retain a bit of their primal strength. Not fully internalized, not fully externalized. That is the criminal: the strong man made sick.

Nietzsche puts traditional sociology on its head: rather than the criminal being the odd one out, being the exception, Nietzsche says society is the exception, society is the sick one, the criminal the healthy one. Only that he has become sick because his environment is sick.

The criminal who loses the fight against society, succumbs to it, and internalizes his aggression and develops a bad conscience. But some individuals are so strong that they aren't changed by society -- they change society.

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