In the genealogy of morality

Description

we must beware of any “moralistic” understanding of Nietzsche’s writings; To consider him, for example, a desperate opponent of modern enlightenment, a dangerous advocate of barbarism, an anti-Semite, a fanatical nationalist, or a disgruntled collectivist opposed to the rights-based gains of the liberal state—these are more preconceived notions, or rather, morbid forms of curiosity. He is simply practicing a “new enlightenment,” one that pushes him far beyond any previous enlightenment, including that which has been termed “radical enlightenment.” This latter form is only radical insofar as it assumes that “atheism” has thus far been nothing more than a distorted form of faith or “ascetic ideal”: a brazen usurpation of the now-vacant place of the moral God, in a deplorable conflation of the “superman” who has appropriated the divine names of the monotheistic God, and the audacity to venture into the “superhuman” realm as a requirement for a free life, one that enjoys sound metaphysical health and demands nothing less: the creation of a new kind of “human being.”